It was supposed to be a quiet and relaxing night out...

From up in my room, I hear the doorbell ring. Lucy starts barking and a few seconds later the girls start squealing with excitement. I hear Cosette rattling the gate at the top of the stairs, and Juliette screaming "Vanessa! Vanessa's hear!"

Shortly thereafter, Greg comes into our room where I am blowing dry my hair. He looks at me and shouts over the dryer "So, what should we do now?"

We were in the unfamiliar position of having a babysitter for the evening, with no obligations other then to go out on a date and relax. And we were at a loss.

We make our exit a few minutes later; the girls, having been fed dinner already, are happily playing at the art table with Vanessa and barely look up as we leave. That is reassuring; it is nice to know your children are happy when you leave them with a babysitter. Still, I feel a little pang of concern; this is the first time Vanessa is babysitting at bedtime with both girls. However, she is accustomed to handling four toddlers at once at the daycare; I'm sure my two are well within her capabilities.

We enjoy a nice dinner and decide to head over to the new cinema at the mall for an 8:05 showing of Borat. And this is when the evening begins to take a turn for the worse.

First, on the way there- a three minute drive from the restaurant- some guy in the left turn only lane decides to go straight, and if it wasn't for Greg's quick reflexes he would have creamed the Porsche, which I'm guessing would lose in a battle with a big Caddy. We curse the guy a few times as we pull into the parking lot at the mall. As we start walking to the movie theatre we are struck by the fact that there are a lot of people walking around. I ask Greg when it became the place to be on a Saturday night, and he shrugged. I tell you, the place was packed with people- many of them of high school age- just wandering around.

However, there were still tickets available for our movie so we buy two, get some popcorn and candy- and the lady at the counter definitely did not layer my butter as I asked her to do- and find some good seats for the show. Half way through the blessedly short movie we are ready to abandon those seats. We get to go to a movie once or twice a year, and we definitely could have picked a better one. The lesson here is: don't listen to the critics. Also, if you don't like the guys TV show and find it irritating and dumb, you should not subject yourself to an hour and a half long movie of the same irritating and dumb "humor".

As we walk out we realize that it is only 9:30. Vanessa is booked to midnight, and although we both agree we probably won't make it til then, we decide it would be pathetic to go home so early. So we decide to go have a cocktail at the new restaurant/ sports lounge.

The bar is almost full so we grab one of the cocktail tables. After waiting a few minutes with no sign of a waitress we decide we would rather be at the bar where we can play the trivia game. We find one empty seat; Greg is standing next to me. We order our drinks and Greg notices that there is an empty chair on the other side of the couple next to us, so he asks if they would mind sliding their chairs over so he could move his in. As he walks around to get the chair, the girl turns to me and asks: "Are we not allowed to sit at those tables over there?"
Me: "No, you can."
Her: "So why don't you go sit at one?"
Me: frustratingly unable to think of a comeback and a little bit irritated at the overwhelming bitchiness that is radiating from this woman's core. Her boyfriend just smiles at me and pulls her chair closer to his, away from me.

Greg returns with the chair and I update him on my conversation. He decided to offer to buy the couple a round of drinks. He is a bigger person then I. So we are all sitting and enjoying our cocktail when the bartender comes up and says, "Well, the mall is on lockdown. There was just a shooting outside."













Let me repeat that. "There was just a shooting outside."













It turns out that it wasn't a shooting; just a large brawl that broke out in two different places while we were blissfully not enjoying our movie. It involved hundreds of people, many of them were teenagers that were attending a high school dance party at another restaurant- a non-alcoholic event being held to keep them out of trouble. Hmph. Several were injured, a few were arrested, and police from 5 different towns were called in to control the mayhem. There are rumors that someone had a concealed weapon, but no confirmation that anyone actually got shot. Also, I found out, this happened a few months ago too. Great! My girls are going to be teenagers (eventually), teenagers who want to hang out at the mall. And I'm going to have to lock them in their rooms.

The bitchy girl leaves soon after, and then the nice guy down from us activates our trivia game for us. We play for a few minutes but we really really stink at trivia; and really- all fun is gone and I just want to go home. We are able to make our getaway a few minutes later, without incident. The girls are asleep, the house is cozy, and I'm glad to be home.

That's what we get for trying to have a date.