>Mommy’s Big Night Out

>”Are you The Writer?”

The hostess at a trendy restaurant where Hubs and I were celebrating our anniversary last week asked me this question as I scooted into our booth. Quickly, I scanned her face– Was I being Punk’d? She gazed steadily back at me.

“Me? Hehum. Yeah…?” I said hesitantly. It had to be a trick question. I mean, I guess technically, I wrote stuff. Did that make me The Writer? I couldn’t be sure.

“I’ve read you all through college,” she said earnestly. “I just graduated. I love your column.”

“And I LOVE YOU!!!” I shrieked, leaping over the table and enveloping her in a big bear hug.

Okay, so maybe I imagined that part. What I actually did was smile very politely and say, “Wow. Thank you so much! Thank you! I mean, thanks! Really! Thank you!” And then, as she walked away, I turned to Hubs with a huge grin on my face.

“I’m The Writer.” I said. “The Writer! That’s me!”

Hubs was grinning, too. “That was a first!” he said.

The evening was off to a good start, but as many of you know, it is actually impossible for me to go out without making a fool of myself. But hang on. We’re not quite there yet.

After a marvelous dinner of seared sashimi tuna and a goat cheese and roast chicken empanada and ceviche and the best sangria and mojito I have ever had the pleasure of imbibing, we drove to the incredibly self-conscious, boho-artsy side of town in order to see a Battle of the Bands between “rockers” from all three local TV stations. The tiny bar was packed with news people, all of whom turned out to cheer on their respective employees as they took the tiny stage.

While we were there, I caught up on gossip with some of my friends and former co-workers. And then I met my husband’s boss for the first time. We chatted for a few minutes, me compulsively swirling the drink straw in my Cosmopolitan while I gassed on about ratings and and news philosophy and blah blah blah and then, I guess my compulsion got the best of me or something because all of a sudden, the straw catapulted right out of the drink and….

HIT MY HUSBAND’S BOSS IN THE FACE.

Oh yes it did.

“Whoa!” I yelped. Oh no. Oh. No. “Ooh, sorry about that.” The boss wiped droplets of my Cosmo off his cheek.

“Wow,” my husband said mildly.

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened,” I said in what I hoped was a casual tone. I tried to smile to mask my horror and ended up with the face of a Barnum and Bailey clown who’s just been kicked in the ‘nads.

“That’s it, Ferrier,” the boss said, turning to Hubs. “You’re through.”

Okay, so maybe I imagined that part. But there’s probably a new note in Hubs’s employee file this morning that says something like, FERRIER’S WIFE IS A COCKTAIL STRAW-TOSSING LUSH WHO REFERS TO HERSELF IN THE THIRD PERSON AS ‘THE WRITER.’ THE WOMAN IS A LOOSE CANNON AND MUST BE DEALT WITH.

Not long after the straw-tossing incident, Hubs’s boss excused himself (probably to go wash his face off in the men’s room, OMG)and I was left to watch the stage and ponder my shortcomings. I stared morosely at a Channel 2 reporter I knew only through his website, which I think set a record at one point for most-pictures-of-one’s-own-self-on-a-blog. He was singing with gusto, accompanied by his entirely-too-gorgeous-and-skinny-and-blonde wife. And they were good. Disturbingly good. I masked my insecurities accordingly by starting a rumor that she was a mail-order bride from Lithuania. And then I stared in awe at two guys standing inches from the stage, swaying blissfully to the duo’s original stylings and singing along, word for word. The dudes looked like they had come straight from Bonnaroo- They were skinny, dreadlocked and tattoooed, and they wore head kerchiefs. After the set was over, they cornered the reporter’s mail-order bride and eagerly chatted with her. I joined my husband and a news photographer and his wife.

“Would you like a beer?” I heard a few moments later. One of the dreadhead groupies had come over to talk.

“Er, what?” I asked. Surely I had misheard him.

“Would you like a beer? I’d like to buy one for you.” I stood gaping at him for a long moment.

“No,” I said finally. “No thanks.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. He was dancing from one foot to the other, as if prepared to run should my husband, who was sitting on the edge of the pool table beside me, decide to challenge him.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure. Thanks, though.”

I turned back to my friends. They all burst out laughing.

“What was that?” the photographer said.

“I have no idea,” I replied. Nor did I care. I was simply going to savor the moment that some dude tried to buy me a beer. A sort of dirty, scary-looking dude with- was that a moustachelet?-, who was probably planning to drug me, but hell. I’m a suburban mama with four kids and a beagle.

That was about as exciting as my week was going to get.