Night on the Town

Happy Easter and happy spring! While Fennella and Violet are together once again, I'm sitting on my porch enjoying the gorgeous day ready to reflect on my past weekend. I just talked to my parents and I think my mother is disappointed for two reasons, 1) I didn't come home this weekend and 2) I didn't go to church this morning ("Why not? Are you looking for a church?" "Well I've seen churches...") So after telling her what I've been doing this weekend, a weekend that Conrad came to visit, she again started asking me when I was coming home. This time however, she mentioned that I could bring whomever I wanted with me. Yikes! You read right, it turns out, moving an hour away isn't enough to kill our friendship and Conrad actually came down for the night. And while I'm ready to meet someone (anyone) to make me forget Conrad's name romantically speaking, Conrad still remains my closest friend around here. Due to certain circumstances both of us really need a friend right now.

I'm not going to lie, I was really excited for his visit. It was going to be my first weekend to have time to actually enjoy the city. He was bringing his brand spanking new iPad (yes, I got to play with it and yes, it is awesome), we were going out to dinner, and we got tickets to a show.

Unfortunately (though it was a great experience) we accidentally went on a date to a really nice restaurant. It was a steakhouse near the theater we were going to and my roommate's bf recommended it as being fairly casual and not too expensive (Note to self: This guy is never to be listened to ever again). We walk in and they ask for Conrad's last name and continue to call him "Mr. Conrad" for the remainder of the evening. We should have seen this as our first warning sign, as no one wearing jeans and a t-shirt should ever be referred to as Mr. anything. They sat us in a corner and hand the menus to "Mr. Conrad" and tell him about the drink specials. Our waiter comes with bread and tells him about the garlic spreads. After filling up our water glasses (Conrad's first) the waiter tells him about the specials. He tells him to make himself at home.

Now I know fine dining has it's little quirks about a man at a table, ordering and such. But this wasn't exactly fine dining, and Conrad is not that sort of man. I could only come to one conclusion: this restaurant is sexist! Only responding to the thank you's of the man of the table does not mean you're fine dining, it means you're purposely ignoring the woman!

Conrad found this particularly funny as he is often jokingly sexist. When I tell him I can't figure out how to hook up my dvd player, how to find the molarity of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, how to best make mashed potatoes up to his high Southern standard, his answer is always the same "it's because you're a woman." It was odd to have to agree with him in this case, and to do so seriously. Seeing this sexism in action definitely kept us laughing while we savored our overpriced steak and filled up on the free bread (it didn't even come with sides?!). As we looked at each other and tried to hold back the giggles as our waiter scraped away our breadcrumbs off the white linen. We were so out of our league. I completely lost it once the waiter left and Conrad pulled out the piece of bread he had been hiding in his lap and slowly and guiltily brought it to his mouth. He was determined to get his money's worth, whether his crumbs had just been scraped away or not.

All in all, we had a great night. We saw a good show, walked around downtown and brought back two slices of cheesecake from the Factory (a slice of heaven). Though I purposely awkwardly held his hand at times we were strictly platonic, which is the way we should be. Next weekend his mom is visiting him. She wants to come into town, as Conrad will admit, partly to see the city but mostly to meet me. I'm pretty excited about this, we are active Facebook friends after all.