Date Night With The Wife

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Last Friday, I decided to take the wife out for dinner without any prompting from her. She's been under a lot of stress at work lately. But do I really need a reason (should I have to have a reason) to do something special for my wife?

I took care of everything --- set my son up for the night with a few of his friends and got our babysitter to spend the night to look after babygirl. My wife told me earlier in the week, "I wanna see a grown up movie...a movie my son can't see and doesn't want to see."

"There's Notorious?" I suggested, joking.

To which she gave me that, "Are you kidding me?" look.

We agreed to see Slumdog Millionaire and in keeping the theme of the evening the same, I suggested Indian for dinner.

This is where things went south.

Our favorite Indian restaurant is located in a little enclave of restaurants off Fort Washington up near Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan. But based on the movie times, we wouldn't be able to eat there. So we opted for a local spot she discovered about month into our marriage. We went there once. She had a great time. I left the restaurant with the shakes and about a half-mile away wound up projectile vomiting all over the dashboard of my truck while driving. To this day I don't believe my vehicle has ever gotten over this traumatic event.

I threw up because I have a peanut allergy and allergies to every other nut on Earth. We think that something she ate did it to me, as we make a practice of sampling one another's foods. Not willing to make the same mistake twice she asked the waiter, the hostess and the owner several questions and she told me with fork in hand and pointed my way, "You're not ruining my date. I'm going to see my movie!"

I had no intention of ruining anything.

I began the evening with some delicious Naan bread with pieces of lamb baked into it. And I should've stopped there because as soon as I bit down into my entree that feeling came over me. The Mr. Hyde transformation that comes over me when I eat something with nuts in it as Dr. Jekyll.

My wife took one look at me and knew. But I insisted I was fine. I drank some water, took a deep breath and cleared my tightening throat. A few more minutes of feeling my breath becoming more labored and my eyes swelling and I was done. I excused myself from the table, calmly walked to the men's room, found a nice quiet stall and shoved my index and middle fingers as far down my throat as possible.

In the time it takes a man to pee, I returned to the table all smiles and told my wife, "Let's go. We're gonna be late for the movie."

"You sure you're alright?"

"Yeah," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I'm good."

"Your eyes are blood red, liar," she said with a smile. "You're on a model's diet, huh?"

All I would say is that the sewer system got some good-ass lamb bread. My wife laughed, she packed up all the food as her leftovers and I wished I had just stuck with my appetizer which had me full anyway. The restaurant had no explanation, given that they were aware of my "condition" and fully catered to it. But I am allergic to coconut too. We did forget to mention that and coconut milk is a common ingredient in Indian rice dishes.

Slumdog Millionaire was excellent and I do hope it wins an Oscar. It definitely deserves one. I was riveted for the entire 122 minutes. We went home happy. So I give our first date night of the year a four out of five stars.

Conversation: Great

Appetizers: Great

Movie: Excellent

Throwing up all my food in the bathroom of the restaurant: Not So Great

Knowing my wife had a nice night out: Worth every minute of the rest of it.