Here’s to our 10 worst dates ever, Valentine! (Blog hop)

Dear Husband,

Sixteen years ago, the day after Valentine’s day, you proposed to me in a serene and sincere moment in the wilderness. Instead of detailing that pinnacle moment of our romantic history this Valentine’s Day, I mined a few doozys from the ghost of our dating past [COBWEBS] [CREEKS] [CHAINS AND GHOULS!]

10) 1996-1998: All of the plays I ever took you to in Chicago– especially those I acted in and/or those involving unwarranted nudity in close proximity. Also that one with me on stage making out with some actor-freak, and specifically that musical with Depression-era tunes still haunting you 15 years later. We met at a theater, and it turned out that you hated the theater. Oh also, that role I played featuring a terrible German accent.  Hah-peh Wal-un-tine Deh!

9) August 1997: A road trip from Chicago to DC. We chose Kelly’s Island, OH for a stop-over, picturing a ferry ride to a quaint tourist village. The phrase “fun-loving singles” should have tipped us off, similar to apartment listings boasting “city lights.” We got the last room on the island…in the Bates Motel. Not only did our hostess have a grown live-in  dependent who we never saw–but whose random screams punctuated our increasingly tentative movements–but our room had spiders on the ceiling, and a closet so full of junk you could have twisted it and expelled a solid tomb-o-rummage. We made our escape for the night, down to a pier full of drunken ruffians and a vomiting bachelorette, her veil holding back her hair instead of her equally wasted maid of honor. We felt safer in Chicago’s “city lights” than we did around Lake Eerie’s Island of “fun-loving singles.” I’ll be your friend, and I’ll be your lover, and I know in our hearts we agree… we don’t have to ever go to Kelly’s Island again.

8) Yom Kippur 1997: When we stayed at temple all day even though I had never once before in my life stayed at temple all day on Yom Kippur. Nor had I ever not eaten all day or inflicted myself upon someone having not eaten all day. Okay, so this served less as a “date” and more of a “hazing.” Be mine!

7) Thousand Waves Self Defense, 1997 (See also, I have no idea how or why we ended up here or why you stayed with me after 1997): Picture you, me, and a room full of middle-aged people in karate pants. We tried for inconspicuous, but they “welcomed” newcomers by thrusting us front and center, stretching deeply and loudly–butts going every which way, hips circling the other. We needed no warm-up as each mandatory and highly self-aware “HYA!” burst from our mouths, along with our dignity, into a big pile of things only funny after the fact. Cupid, draw back your bow and let your arrow go..into my eye because this had to be my idea.

6) One fateful honeymoon day 1999, Costa Careyes: when we left the ridiculously posh resort because you wanted to see Puerto Vallarta. Our hired driver dropped us off and Montezuma immediately swept you off your feet, with no accommodations in sight. That one’s on you, Romeorrhea.

5) Snowboarding, 2002. I was just a girl on a snowboard trying to get off a lift, staring at a boy going airborne and falling on top of me.

4) New Year’s 2005: A double date starring my newly engaged BFF and her fiance and, we, the freshly miserable new parents. They gazed at each other adoringly through vintage finery–her with  a circle skirt around tiny waist, him fedora perched just so. They reeked of rest and hormones that threatened to detonate the booth. We gazed past each other, into space– Me, in my best post-pregnancy expandable knits, You in something we argued about. We were old enough to be parents, but clueless enough not to ask about the New Year’s menu in advance. We paid $400 for a pre fixe featuring deep-fried lobster tail, and  served concurrently with a shiny new love blinding our lifeless corneas. The other couple went for a romantic walk around the capitol while we waited for dessert, or perhaps they needed to air themselves from the rumpled remnants of the friends they once knew. Sizzle!

3) My 10 Year High School Reunion, 2006. Per your description “The first hour was fine. The second I was ready to leave. The third I wanted to jump out the window.” I don’t know, from my perspective a football field-sized banquet room away, you seemed to share a wonderful evening with my Chemistry lab partner, What’s Her Name. Kiss Me!

2) Remember Florence, Italy 2009? Remember our very own Fellini film? Cut to the clueless American couple trying to push a stroller on cobblestones while holding a jet-lagged 9 month old and a sick three year old. Camera pans one way, then the other, and a melodic voice ushers forth “IL DUOMO CAN SUCK IT I WANT LEMON GELATO”…That’s Amore!

1) Every wedding 1996-Forever, meaning the only times I force you on the dance floor. It will happen again. Prepare yourself. Love, Mrs. Robato. Mwah.

It’s a Valentine’s Day blog hop! Read more dating disasters over at these hilarious blogs: