Date Night!

Tiffany and I went on a date to a movie on a school night last week. Of course, I'm not in school, and Tiffany is between classes right now, so technically "school night" is incorrect, but it's how we refer to Monday thru Thursday nights in a bit of nostalgia for the years when school nights were the worst thing ever. "Work night" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Work nights do, however, have the same effect on us. We rarely go out Monday thru Thursday. This is partly because we both get up before the garbage trucks and partly because we're mental octogenarians.

On this particular occasion, I was running late from work, so Tiffany picked me up on the scooter. She doesn't like to go out-out on the scooter because the helmet messes up her hair. Also, it's hard to look glamorous on a beat-up two-wheeler with a gigantic dent and a missing tail light and side-mirror. One of my presents for her most recent birthday was veto power on a trip for which I insist--in the name of efficiency and frugality-- on the scooter. So far, she hasn't used the coupon.

We were headed to the Castro for the opening night of the gay and lesbian film festival. As I'm sure you can imagine, the gay and lesbian film festival is a really big deal in San Francisco. One of Tiffany's clients gave us tickets (thank you!), and, when we got there, the neighborhood was hopping with the usual characters (If you remember, this is the neighborhood where we saw two, count-'em two penises one Sunday.). Parking would have been a disaster, but not on a scooter! We slid right into a space between two cars at meters and pranced into the theater, failing to notice the gigantic "No Parking" signs that had been taped to the meter poles.

When we came out two hours later, a gigantic party-supply truck was trying to back into what would have been a huge series of open metered-spots except for this beat-up scooter plopped right in the middle of its path.

"Why is our scooter all by itself?" Tiffany asked.

"Uh-oh," I said.

A crowd of gay men had gathered to watch the truck-scooter face-off unfold. It was obvious our scooter would lose.

"Wait!" we screamed, darting across the street. "It's ours! Wait!"

Thankfully, they did. The man directing the truck rolled his eyes as we fumbled to put on our helmets and find our keys.

"Go, go, go," I hissed to Tiffany.

"My earrings are stuck on the helmet!" she cried.

The gay men laughed at our panic.

"I told you it was lesbians," one called drily to another as they smoked outside a bar.

"Well, duh," Tiffany whispered to me as our scooter finally started. "Like gay men would drive an old thing like this."