too intense

Thursday evening, my husband and I deposited Nathaniel into his grandmother's eager arms and slipped out of our house. It was our fourth wedding anniversary, and exactly five weeks since Nathaniel's birth. We had a date.

We ate at a nearby restaurant, a fancy French restaurant that we had walked by many times but never entered. The food and service were, as rumored, superb.

We also had some entertainment. We were seated near a dramatically dressed couple on a date. They bowed and danced verbally like two Oprah-influenced peacocks. He used the phrase "self-actualizing" without irony. She allowed as to how she was currently processing some self-identity issues.

At one point his intentions became clear. "I want to sleep with you," he exclaimed loudly enough for all nearby tables to hear.

The murmur of the restaurant dropped imperceptibly as the diners strove to hear her response.

"You don't want to sleep with me." She demurred, loudly enough to make sure the rest of the room heard her side of the story.

"No," he declared passionately, "I do!"

She dropped her eyes coquettishly. "No, you don't." She paused for dramatic effect. "It would be too intense for you."

("Ouch," my husband muttered.)

He drew back and smiled a roguish smile. "Oh," he whispered throatily, "I could handle it."

My husband and I immediately took big gulps of some very fine wine to stop our giggles. For the rest of the evening, every so often, my husband leaned over, raised one eyebrow at me, and whispered, "I'm too intense for you!" I would hastily gulp more wine to prevent some fancy-restaurant-inappropriate laughter, which, in hindsight, probably added to the overall problem of the giggles.

I hope the power date couple never figured out why my husband and I were giggling so much.