By Todd CraigIn school, our favorite teachers were the ones who inherently understood you. They knew when you were struggling. They knew when to help and when to back off. They knew when you needed encouragement or an attaboy. Those teachers radiated kindness, compassion, and thoughtfulness as they escorted you through everything from cursive writing to graphing equations.
They just knew you.
Life is not that teacher.
Life’s lessons are usually cruel. Cold is a good adjective. Life doesn’t care about you, your feelings, or anything else for that matter. Life’s lesson is that you are the slowest gazelle in a field of lions.
Last weekend, my husband experienced one of those life lessons.
You see, last August he turned 30 – or in gay years 112. Thirty is a big milestone because it means you’re well beyond prom, cheap beer, and going out on Thursday nights amongst other things.
I can speak with authority on this subject because 30 for me was twelve years ago. (Side note #1: I realize this also means, as the great philosopher Billy Idol once opined, that I “rocked the cradle of love” when it came to selecting a husband. My response is: Yes. Yes I did.)
Anyway, an old boyfriend of my husband who had missed our original celebration back in August decided to make it up to him last weekend by escorting us out for dinner, drinks, and dancing. Our only setback proved slight: Our regular babysitter had taken some new job and couldn’t watch our seven year old son. Fortunately, a quick call to grammy’s house solved that problem, and we were free for a night of fun and debauchery.
The night out started slowly. We took our time with dinner, and then made our way to an unbusy downtown joint where we sat and drank and shared stories for a few hours in the quiet of the evening. Dancing was then suggested, and we traveled thusly to another venue, paid our cover charge, bought expensive watered-down drinks, and settled in at a side table to the dance floor.
(Side note #2: I’m not a dancer – never have been, never will be. And at 42, ain’t nobody really wants to see me on the dance floor. I’ve known this lesson for a number of years, but tonight was my husband’s night. And even at 30, he could easily pass for 20, so whatever. I went along for the drinks and was content to watch the show.)
Anyway, it soon became clear that it had been a while since we had been on the club dancefloor. The theme of the night was black light body paint, and the kids were enjoying every minute of it. And by kids, I mean that the median age of the dance floor was about 2 ½. I say this because most of them were walking around in only their Underoos with skin awash with fluorescent messages promoting varying degrees of sexual proclivity.
“So, is this what they do now?” My husband yelled in my ear over the music. His judgment coming through loud and clear despite the pulsating sounds of Miley Cyrus’s voice being mixed with what sounded like trucks downshifting on the highway.
“Oh, don’t be too harsh on them. I’m pretty sure you went through a body glitter stage back in the late 90s,” I grinned.
“Is this even music?” My husband asked. “How do you dance to this?”
“Sweetie. Whitney is dead. Janet is approaching 50. Destiny’s Child flipped off her parents and moved in with her deadbeat boyfriend a decade ago,” I replied. “This is what kids dance to now.”
“Well, not me. Let’s go,” my husband said. We pounded our drinks and left.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, we were giggling at the shirtless boys traipsing through the parking lot on a freezing cold night.
“Wow. I guess this is what old feels like because there was nothing fun about all this at all,” my husband grumbled as he gestured at the parking lot of kids tripped out on the evening’s efforts.
We pulled away into the night and back to the safety of our outdated comfort zone before it occurred to me that I had forgotten to settle our tab and that I had left our credit card at the bar. We turned the car back around, and my husband scurried in after it.
Twenty minutes later, he returned. What took so long, I asked. A long line at the bar? A lost card?
“You’ll never guess who just settled out our tab,” my husband said sinking into the Hyundai’s bucket seat with a heavy sigh and a blank stare.
I shook my head to indicate that I hadn’t a clue.
“Our babysitter.”
Ouch.
“He asked me what I was doing here,” he said. “I’m not sure which one of us had the right to be more surprised.”
Double ouch.
Yes, life’s lessons at age 30 aren’t necessarily easy; nor are they particularly kind.
We were home before midnight, the slowest gazelles heading to the quiet side of the nature preserve glad at avoiding the lions of the night. We reminisced in bed for a while about the olden days in the club, about dance music that contained music, and about how it took at least two or three washes to get all of that body glitter out of your bed sheets. The memories proved more entertaining than our experiences that night.
“I guess we’re both old now,” my husband said somewhat dejectedly.
“Don’t worry,” I said pulling him over to my side of the bed, “you get used to it.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but it was funnier when it was just you.”
