Re-light my fire!

Lately I have started to become aware of a new phenomenon.  As new phenomenon go, I find this one a bit creepy.  A bit like dressing animals up in human clothes or naming your genitals ‘Big Roger can’t wait to see Priscilla!’

 

This latest craze is something that seems to be happening everywhere, between couples who have been together since Madonna was still a woman.

 

DATE NIGHT

 

That’s right!  Date night.  Going on a ‘date’ with your other half.  A date!  Imagine that!  Leaving the house, to go somewhere that isn’t work/the supermarket/the school run.  All alone. Without children, or dogs or children’s friends or random family members. 

 

As a lot of people I know seem to be jumping on the date night bandwagon I decided to do a bit of research into it.  The first thing I notice are the pictures of the couples accompanying the ‘date night’ articles.  These people are sitting on picnic rugs, and gazing into each others eyes, or leaning into each other in candlelit restaurant in a gesture that implies intimacy.   The last time Phil gazed into my eyes was to see if the stye I had was turning septic.

 

If what I’m reading is to be believed ‘date night’ will ‘rekindle all the romance we felt in the early days’.  The woman who wrote this article has clearly never met Phil.  The first time I invited him round for supper he brought me 8 cans of Stella and a pirate copy of reservoir dogs which had the backs of people’s heads getting up to go to the toilet every 2 minutes. Then he proceeded to pick every kidney bean out of the chilli I'd made before trying to shove his hand up my top.

 

However I’m obviously in a highly suggestible mood (I blame the cilit bang, I’ve noticed the fumes make me hallucinate) because the more I read the more I start to believe the hype.  I start to realise that I simply have to try a ‘date night’

 

I start to plan the date night (I have not told Phil about the date night.  I might not actually! I can’t find anywhere that actually says that you have to take your own husband on date night) 

 

I notice that there seems to be a certain format you have to follow if you want to have a successful date night.  If I follow the simple instructions I’ll be putting the ‘cherry on the top of the date night sundae’.  Somebody actually wrote that, they used those words. I consider explaining it to Phil in those exact words but I know he’d probably set the dog on me or leave me on the M1.

 

Laying the groundwork.

 

Apparently there is a lot to arrange, but first I need to invite my husband on said date night. I find him in front of the telly.  I sidle up to him in a way I believe to be seductive and he flinches.

When I ask him why he flinched he tells me he thought I was going to hit him.  HIT HIM! He thought I was intending to attack him!! Bash in his brains like Tracey Barlow! My first attempt at seduction and he behaves as if I have just come at him brandishing a lead pipe.

 

I decide he doesn’t deserve my subtle seduction skills and brusquely tell him that on Friday night we are going on a DATE and it will be ROMANTIC and he will ENJOY himself.  I take advantage of the fact that only seconds ago he was scared and use enough menace in my voice so he can’t refuse.

 

 

What to do on ‘date night’

 

Again I turn to the internet for suggestions.  Apparently the date itself doesn’t need to be a ‘date’ in the traditional sense (meal/too much wine/violent recriminations about the time he looked at your friend for 3 seconds too long) nor does it need to break the bank. I am encouraged to be creative and look for something fun and different.

 

The second website I find makes me laugh. I find each suggestion more hysterically funny than the last. I am literally hyperventilating with mirth and wishing I was only half as funny as the author of this article when suddenly I realise.

THIS IS A SERIOUS ARTICLE

 

Jesus! It really is! It’s serious, and it’s suggesting that once a week (prescribed frequency of date night) myself and my husband set some time apart and do one of the following:

 

• Throw a slumber party and have dinner in bed. ‘Have each other for desert’ (have visions of Phil in tiny silver underpants, holding two glasses of ‘fizz’ and calling me ‘bee-yooo-ti-ful lay-deeeee)

 

• Attend a concert. Dance together and sing out loud to each other. (Oh goody, I’ll get us Lindisfarne tickets shall I?)

• Sit face to face and draw sketches of each other, really study each others’ features. (I’ve played Pictionary with Phil. I already have a low enough self esteem without spending the days after he reveals my sketch believing myself to look like a shoe with eyes)

 

Another article tells me to ‘surprise him ‘as this might lead to ‘sexy results’.  There is clearly something seriously wrong with me because when I hear the words ‘sexy results’ I think of Frank Bough reading the pools naked.  Anyway....

 

I am urged to:

 

·         Slam him against a wall and give him a ‘deep French kiss’ -This is out of the question as I know he has a lose filling which I’m bound to end up swallowing.

·         Send him a rude text – Is ‘sometimes on a morning your breath smells like a drain’ rude enough?

 

• Leave your bra off and give him a sexy glimpse of breast.  If I leave my bra off he’ll get a ‘sexy’ glimpse of nipple – from out of the bottom of my top. 

 

In the end I decide to do what the most sensible website I find suggests and go for food and do an activity.  Within minutes we are promised to be giggling like romantic teenagers unable to keep our hands off each other.

 

So on Friday we’re having mackerel sandwiches in Morrison’s Car Park before going cow pushing.

 

DING DONG!