The worst date ever

Note: Thankfully there are no photos to accompany this post. You will have to use your imagination.

Marcus and I have been married almost 12 years, together for 14. Throw in 3 kids, 4 houses, 2 cats and a dog and that is a lot of shared memories.  

His consulting work means he is working mostly from home so I am fortunate that I see him every day but these last few months I have missed him. Strange thing that you can live with someone but miss them.  

Our busy lives mean that we are lucky to fit in a conversation together each day. He goes to bed early, I go to bed late so our pillow talk is pretty non existent. More often than not we communicate by quick sentences across the children, over serving up meals, dashing out the door and 80% of the time those sentences get interrupted by a child, a phone ringing etc etc.  We are pretty good at giving each other 'lad' and 'girl' time, weekends away and such which is lovely but what I have been CRAVING is husband and wife time. No kids, no friends. Just him and me and some long uninterrupted conversations. 

So when my parents phoned to say they were coming to stay for a week I booked them in for babysitting so that Marcus and I could duck away for 24 hours.  It seemed so perfect. I booked a hotel in Napier so that we wouldn't waste any time traveling and I even brought a new dress to wear on a dinner date.  

Then real life interrupted with Marcus having to travel to Hamilton on the day I had arranged and a quick look at our finances showed that we couldn't really afford that hotel I had booked as well as restaurant dinner and lunch out.  So I compromised, canceled the hotel, asked my in-laws if we could borrow their campervan for the night and then waited for Marcus to get back from Hamilton for us to leave. 

He got back at 5pm, pretty smashed from the drive and we both had queasy tummies.  I figured the kids had been complaining of sore tummies all week and I had told them to toughen up and to their credit they had,  so this little bug couldn't be too bad, could it? 

We left home about 7pm after I had put the kids to bed,  and then we drove to Napier and drove around and around and around looking for one of the restaurants on my list of places to check out. 

However being Monday night, EVERYTHING was shut. I had this dreaded feeling as I sat there all dolled up in my new dress that we were going to end up eating dinner at McDonalds. Fortunately Milk and Honey was open so we parked our big beast of a camper right up outside and headed in for dinner.  

We ordered then Marcus excused himself to visit the bathroom.  This was the first of 5 visits he had to make over dinner.  It was laughable. We had this beautiful table, a quiet restaurant, amazing food and finally the chance to talk and conversation kept being interrupted by loo breaks.  Neither of us could finish our meals due to our unsettling tummies.  While Marcus was on one of his toilet breaks I watched a couple a few tables over chatting away on what looked like a first date.  They had a lot to talk about.  He gazed at her, interested in her banter, she likewise asked lots of questions of his life. There was laughter and hand touching. I felt a jab of sadness that our date wasn't like theirs.  

After leaving the restaurant our idea of some freedom camping on the beach went out the window realising that we were going to need to be near a toilet block.  We ended up in Clive, overlooking the river and parking pretty much under the bridge so that we would be a short walk to the toilet block. Let me just pause here to say that Marcus and I are both tall people and campervan beds are not designed to be made up by tall people late at night, one wearing heels and a short dress.  It was anything short of glamorous (me and the finished bed.) Also feeling slightly paranoid about being broken into, I made Marcus double check that every door and window was shut and locked. This done we crawled under the covers, our crumbling, rumbling tummies  and the odd sulphur burp making sure that any hope of romancing was well and truly snuffed out.

Marcus got up and visited the toilet twice.  On his return the second time I couldn't re settle,  I suddenly felt like I was going to vomit.  I sat upright and said "I think I'm going to be sick!"  I crawled to the edge of the bed in the dark, not knowing where any of the light switches were, grabbed the door handle but couldn't open the door.  I managed a quick "I can't open the door!"  before my mouth filled with vomit, I'm clawing at the door now, willing it to unlock and open. My in-laws in their wisdom had placed a plastic rubbish bin right by the door and in the dark I grabbed it and proceeded to empty my beautiful restaurant dinner into it.  Marcus had made it over to me at this point and is holding my hair out of my face as I spew.  It was then I realised I had actually filled my pants too. Yes we are talking exploding from both ends. I'm horrified! I can't find any shoes to throw on my feet except my high heels so still in the dark (thankfully for me) I run waddle myself in my nighty in high heels carrying a rubbish bin full of sick and underwear full of poo to the toilet block.  There is no light in there either, but due to the moon I can make out the toilet seat at least so get there just in time to off load the rest of the explosion.  Finally empty, surely I must be empty I set about cleaning myself up when discover there is but one tiny square of loo paper remaining.  One square.  One square.  At this point I laugh out loud.

The decision is made to cut our loses and head home. We pull up in our driveway at 11.30pm Marcus makes a joke about how my parents will be happy that he got me home before midnight.  We sneak inside like teenagers and down to Lucy's room. We have a house full of guests so Lucy has been sleeping upstairs with her cousin and we've had her room. Then discover my Mum is in there asleep. Nathan's cot is empty so I'm thinking it's been a rough night for them too and she has Nathan in with her.  Marcus grabs a blanket and heads for the lounge couch, I sneak into Oliver's room and attempt sleep on his bottom bunk. 

Around 3 am, Nathan starts howling and I can hear Mum trying to settle him.  I go into help, apparently scaring the life out of her as she didn't know I was back.  I sort Nathan out back in his own cot,  and update Mum on the events of the night.  She tells me that Dad had put washing up liquid in our dishwasher and flooded the kitchen in soapsuds.  Nathan had woken and Dad had brought him up for Mum. Mum then dazed from being half asleep almost fell down the stairs carrying Nate and Nathan not knowing where Marcus and I were was all freaked out and not sleeping. 

Mum goes back upstairs to rejoin Dad, I get Marcus from the couch and we both crawl into the bed in Lucy's room. It's now 4am. We sleep until well after 9. My parents are wonderful and get up to the kids and sort their breakfasts then head out to the dog park to walk the dogs.  The house is quiet. Marcus and I laugh about the night. We are still feeling terrible and are glad to be close to the loo but that tinge of sadness I felt watching that couple on their first date is gone.  This is marriage. For better and for worse. In sickness and in health.  This man has seen me soil myself and he still lovingly makes me a cup of tea in the morning and then still feeling crook drives me half and hour to buy some peonies.  If that isn't love I don't know what is.