Skrip - tyur' - i - ent: adj. Possessing the violent desire to write.

5/05/2008

#244 In which our hero and his lovely wife do something amazing.

Last Friday The Scientist and I went out! Without children! And met some friends! Out! This is something that we’ve done individually plenty of times, but honestly, I can’t remember the last time we went out together. It was a lot of fun.

My wife orchestrated the affair by calling me on Wednesday and saying, “Hey, do you want to go out Friday? I have a babysitter lined up.” So that was that.

A short time ago I became aware of a restaurant called “Melt Bar & Grilled” which specializes in grilled cheese sandwiches. Being that The Scientist and I both enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches, we wanted to try it out. Actually, when I told her about this place her reaction was, “Holy shit. We HAVE to go there.”

The only hitch was that it was clear across town. Now, Cleveland has this odd east side/west side thing where people don’t like to cross the river. We don’t hold any prejudices against the west side, other than it’s far away. And as soon as we step foot out of the door sans kids, the clock is ticking. In the past we’ve always stayed close to home, just so we could maximize our time. But again, grilled cheese. So we went.

On the way over I called some friends, told them we’d be on their side of the river. They agreed to meet us out and suddenly it was a party!

Melt is a tiny place. And it was already packed when we got there. However, arrived at a good time, around 6pm. Any later and it would have become a big pain in the ass to secure a table for seven. We had a drink at the bar while we waited for everyone else to get there.

Now, Melt also has an extensive beer selection… which would matter if I was a beer drinker. Which I’m not. But, they did have a hard cider on tap, which was nice. The Scientist had her heart set on a Snakebite, which is half cider and half beer (usually Harp--this is very different then the shooter we called Snakebites in college). The bar didn’t have Harp on tap, but they did have it in bottles. The bartender acted like it wasn’t at all a pain in the ass to make this thing with half cider on tap and half bottle beer, which she then stowed in the ice.

A word on this bartender. She was petite and kinda cute, in a heavily tattooed and pierced way. In fact, it seemed like it was mandated to be tattooed and/or pierced to work there, judging by the employees we saw. Our bartender wore the lowest-cut jeans I’ve ever seen in the flesh. She also had some tattoo I couldn’t quite discern on her hip running south. The combination of the two resulted in me starring quite intently at her crotch. Not that I meant to, but my eyes were drawn to it. “What the heck is that tattoo?” I thought. “Also, did I just see labia?” Obviously there was some serious shaving going on, which prompted the same old always-rejected request of my wife. I felt a little dirty about looking, but my wise wife reminded me that it was most likely calculated to generate a bigger tip. Which, now that I think about it, backfired bigger than hell because we transferred our bar tab to the table when we were sat… and unless The Scientist left some money when I wasn’t looking, I don’t think we tipped her at all. Oops. We suck.

Anyway, once everyone was there we ordered and eat an obscene amount of bread and cheese. But good Lord, was it good. At this point I was on my second pint of cider, and The Scientist was on her second Snakebite.

And here’s where I realized that sometimes I’m a bit over-protective of my wife. We hadn’t eaten anything since lunch when we got there, and the first drink was hitting me kind of hard, and I was sure it was affecting my wife ever more. Judging by her rising voice and level of silliness, I can say this with some level of confidence. By the time we had both finished our second (with food this time, thankfully) I figured we should both be done… me because I was driving, and her because… well, because I’ve seen what happens when she partakes too much.

The idea was floated of going out to another bar for more drinks and I, well, I turned into a bit of a dick. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. “Nah,” I said. “I say we hang out here for another half hour then head home.” Of course, when I went to the bathroom I was overruled in absentia. Apparently, the conversation when something like this:
THE SCIENTIST: Okay, where are we going after this?
OTHER REVELER: Um, I know this nice brew pub close to the highway…
TS: Great! Let’s go there.
OR: Well, I don’t want to upset Craig...
TS: Pfft! He’ll be fine. Let’s go!

But I’m glad we went. It was a nice place, and considerably quieter than Melt. It was nice to sit and talk and laugh too loud and annoy the diners around us. But we didn’t have time for more than a cup of coffee and pie before the clock expired and we had to get back to relieve the babysitter.

We should do stuff like that more often. Even if we have to cross a river to do it.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

:) Right now, I'm living vicariously through you. Ahh, grilled cheese, adult friends, no kids.....

10:37 PM

 

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