How The Years Fly By

Ryan and I were at Sea Galley last night, eating our salads.  It was our 11th anniversary, and we found a babysitter so we could have a date.  I was chewing a bite of my caesar salad when something caught my eye from across the table.  I looked up, and Ryan was stabbing various greens with his fork and coming awfully close to... was that a fly?

On the drive to dinner (we went all out and left our small town), we were talking about various things we've done for our anniversary.  I remembered our 9th anniversary, where we had Costco hotdogs (which you can read about here).  Last year we went to a nice B&B in Portland during "Grandpa Camp" while the kids spent some quality time with their grandparents and cousins, but we couldn't remember what we had done on our anniversary itself.  I'm pretty sure we went on a date, but I guess it just wasn't that memorable.

Well, my mouth was full of food and I couldn't safely say something (I've got to use my manners when I'm on a date, after all), but Ryan needed to be warned.  I reached across the table, grabbed his hand, and pointed to the fly.    He looked at me, and the we stared at the fly.  Every once in a while, it would twitch.  It was not entirely dead.  Ryan pushed his plate to the middle of the table, and we started giggling.  By now, you could safely say the salad was 2/3 of the way gone.

"I've only ever heard of something like this happening to someone.  I didn't think it would happen to me," Ryan said.

I agreed.  "It's not even all dead.  Just 'mostly dead, which means he's slightly alive.'"  We started making jokes about Miracle Max and the Princess Bride.

I offered Ryan some of my salad (as it was caesar and not the tossed green kind like his was), but he said he'd pass.

Our server came back and started to clear our salad plates.  Ryan pointed to the unsavory morsel on his plate.  "Oh my gosh.  I'm not prepared for something like this.  Would you like another salad?" our server asked.

Ryan said he was finished with salads for the evening.  When the server left, Ryan cursed his lack of creativity.  He thought he should have asked what the fly was doing on his plate, so the server could have said something like, "Well, looks to me like the backstroke."  I said I didn't think our server was that quick on her feet.

Ryan was cautious throughout the rest of his meal, looking for any suspicious add-ins.  After our server asked if the meal was ok and left, Ryan said to me, "Yep, fly-free.  Just how I like it."

At the end of the meal, the server left the receipt.  No apologies, no discount on Ryan's meal, no free dessert.  We were not impressed.  So Ryan paid for our meal, but left no tip.  Ryan wanted to make a fly out of the zero on the tip area of the receipt, but I thought that might be a little much.

In any case, we left laughing.  This will definitely make the memorable anniversary date list.

Be careful what you wish for.