Long Relationships

On Saturday, JG took me out for my birthday-weekend dinner and it was fantastic. The process of getting to the restaurant, however, was slightly less so. JG has a very good sense of direction, so I rely almost wholly on him whenever we go somewhere because I have a terrible sense of direction. If he says he can get to a destination, I don’t bother to take down an address or phone number because I trust his confidence.

On our way to dinner, we came within about a mile of the restaurant before taking a wrong turn due to poor signage. JG was pretty sure that he could recover without making a U-turn, so we pressed on. Gradually, the landscape transitioned from commercial to residential to urban and I got nervous. I didn’t see any familiar roads, but I didn’t bring it up because, well, I’m usually wrong.

Five minutes before our reservation, JG asked me if I recognized anything. Unfortunately, I didn’t. “The fact that the streets are getting numbered is making me nervous,” I said. “I feel like we’re going downtown.”

“I was afraid of that,” JG said grimly. “Take a look at the map if you can, but don’t hold it up too high.”

We made our best guesses on how to turn, knowing that we wanted to go north in general and toward a major road. With each turn we grew more desperate and JG began to apologize in advance, in case we missed our reservation. Outwardly, I tried to appear cool and collected, not wanting to be prematurely disappointed. I knew that JG was getting frustrated with the time deadline and the lack of direction; this wasn’t like him at all. We only talked to discuss where to go next and what the time was. It was pretty tense inside the car.

I called Information to connect to the restaurant and found out that they held reserved tables for twenty minutes, so we knew we had some borrowed time. Finally, we managed to wind our way to the interstate and get to the restaurant only five minutes late, at least according to us. Rushing in to the lobby after me, JG breathed, “Hi, we were the ones running late.”

Thankfully, the hostess whipped out two menus, gestured, and said, “Right this way.”

Once we were seated, the tension melted away and we were able to breath easily. Our waiter was helpful and entertaining, the food was wonderful, and we really had a fun night out together. I ordered a bright red martini and JG made me feel like a princess the whole time.

We spent an hour in the car on the way to dinner, but it took us less than half an hour to drive back home! Oh, my. At least now we know how to get there.

couples, getting lost, directions, tension