A Tangled Web

Greetings and Regards from SBGville.

If you read my Fitness posts at the WGOM, you saw me allude today to a trip to Mancini’s in St. Paul. I have never been to Mancini’s before. It’s on West 7th, down a ways from the Hockey Rink. Going to a supper club with a five year old on a school night is not my idea of a good time. Let’s unpack that further. Going to a supper club is not my idea of a good time. Going to a supper club with a five year old is not my idea of a good time. So, yeah, there’s a lot not to like. So, how did I end up at Mancini’s anyhow?

Yesterday was my father-in-law’s birthday. He would have been 78 years old, but he passed away in 2009. My mother-in-law would have been 75 next week, but she, too, passed away in 2009. My birthday is in nine days. We normally would celebrate these events together and that included a trip to my in-law’s favorite supper club, Wasson’s, east of Winona in Wisconsin countryside. As far as small town supper clubs go, Wasson’s was okay, but really, it was not my cup of tea, so to speak. But, of course, those days have been over for some time now.

As I am going to ND on Wednesday morning, Monday night was a night for me to prepare. I wanted to do some cleaning in the garage, get packed, get stuff ready because on Tuesday night, I go to bed early and I wanted to spend some time with my daughter. So, I had plenty to do and had communicated this to my wife. Yesterday morning, she says, we are going to Mancini’s to celebrate my dad’s birthday. I said, no, I have a ton of stuff to do. I said, can we celebrate both your parents next time I’m home? She agreed to that. Then a little while later she said, well, our friends invited us out and they insisted that we come. Oh great. She mentioned this to her friend and they invited us out and now I’m stuck. My wife said, you don’t have to come, we’ll go without you. Doubly great. My wife is going and I have the choice of going and foregoing everything I wanted to do or getting that done and looking like an ass. You know what the choice is.

So, we went out and I had a few pretty good stories about my wife’s dad in my pocket. He was a colorful character and I wanted to tell them as a remembrance. But, our friends were not interested in hearing about him and as I was telling the first story, their attention obviously wandered, so I put my stories back into my pocket, so to speak. We had a nice enough dinner but at the end of it, my wife’s friend said thanks for inviting us.

Wait, what? Thanks for inviting us? I thought it was the other way around. So, the tasks I wanted to do last night will either (a) remain unfinished or (b) cut into my sleep tonight. I feel like I’ve been hoodwinked.

My wife didn’t like Mancini’s, my daughter got to bed much later than normal, and we’re out a bunch of money. Plus, I’m looking at being sleep deprived. I totally lost this and there wasn’t one redeeming factor for anyone. This, my friends, is frustrating.