Daddy’s Night Out

When a buddy of mine from my SAHD Meetup group — not the group that dumped me, but, the other one — suggested that myself and another Dad in our group get together for a Daddy’s Night Out to see Prometheus, well, I kinda lept at the offer. I mean, a night out without Greta was rare enough, but, a night out without Mrs. Yeti too? Wow! Nothing at all against the lovely ladies in my life, but, seriously, I can’t remember the last time I went out without either of them.

Anyway, the big night came, we ordered all kinds of awesomely bad-for-you movie food — I’m sorry, but, even the creator of Project X knows that sometimes a man has to eat buttered popcorn and soda for dinner, dammit! — and spent the next two-and-a-half hours geeking out over the exploits of the poor, doomed crew of the Prometheus.

I don’t wanna give anything away, but, as another Dad I know wisely opined on Facebook: “I guess if you name your spaceship after a titan whom the gods condemned to have his liver eaten every day for all eternity, things are not going to end well.” Damn straight, amigo. But, oh, what a wonderful time we had watching everything go to hell onscreen. I’m not kidding, the movie ROCKED! I haven’t been that vocal in a theatre since Mrs. Yeti and I moonwalked in the aisles with a sleeping Greta at the Mommy & Me screening of This Is It. It was awesome!

And the post-screening nerdfest was even better. We actually sat at a table at a shuttered restaurant and talked about the movie and it’s place in the Alien universe for over an hour. Yep, we’re nerds. And when we finally thought we’d solved all the deep, underlying mysteries of the film, guess what we started talking about next? Our kids. Urgh…we’re such saps.

But, the inevitable baby banter aside, our first official Daddy’s Night Out was a rousing success. Can’t wait to do it again in a few weeks with the new Batman!

Dumped by my Meetup Group…

Had kind of a crappy day today — hooray, my every other day sucks philosophy proves true again! — you know the kind where you can’t figure out what to do with yourself? And your child won’t listen to any kind of reason or logic and/or do anything you want them to, and you kinda just wanna crawl back in bed and hit the RESTART button? Well, that was today in spades.

And then, about midway through the day, it hit me…today was Thursday. See, Thursdays used to be the day my newest Meetup Group of super-cool SAHD’s would get together at the park with the kids and vent and chill and laugh until the sun went down, or, you know, someone had to go home. It was always the highlight of my week, and then, something happened. One Dad said his kid’s nap schedule had changed so he couldn’t come in the afternoons anymore, another said he had to do the kid-exchange with his wife before heading to work and the hour just didn’t work for him anymore either. And so on and so on…

But as the SAHD’s dropped from the schedule like flies, I kept RSVP-ing and showing up with Greta at the park. Sometimes Meetup members showed up, sometimes they didn’t, but, it was the perfect time for us — for the record, 2:30PM is like, my favorite time to do anything…not too early, not too late. The perfect time! — so, we kept going. Until last week…

That’s when the captain (or the founder, or, whatever they’re called) of our Meetup Group sent me a snippy e-mail stating that he was thinking about disbanding the Thursday get-together because, and I quote: “As it is, that time is no longer convenient for me, or anyone else but you, for that matter.” Ouch! I was like, hold up now, did I just get dumped by my freaking Meetup Group?!

My wife says it’s no big deal and to just keep going to the park at the same time every Thursday, but, I dunno, man, part of me feels like that is the last place I wanna be on Thursdays at 2:30PM. Oy, I can see it now…me and Greta walking around the park in our faded, tattered wedding dresses, full-on Miss Havisham-style: “Where have all our lovely friends gone?” Nope. Not gonna do it.

Our captain did ask me if there were other times we could get together and I suggested a couple, but, the total radio silence on his end since that initial e-mail has pretty much confirmed things. I was stone-cold dumped by my Meetup Group, yo. Urgh, and how totally pathetic is that?

So, I reckon Thursday afternoons are just gonna keep on sucking for a while…or, you know, until I start my own “Fuck Your Meetup Group Meetup Group” on Thursdays at 2:30PM at the same park. Hmmm…come to think of it, that might be kinda fun!