Date Night

"Promise me we won't balance out the room when we get old."

She said it while we cuddled on the love seat, watching some movie on VHS and sharing a Pepsi. We wore out that love seat while watching a lotta flicks. And for years, I kept my promise; we weren't goofy-eyed-in-love all the time, but we enjoyed being next to each other. We never sat too far apart.

"Never. That will never be us."

Slowly, and without even realizing it, that became us. I'd come home tired from work, wrestle with the kids then hit the couch for some R & R. She'd stay on the love seat, several feet away. She worked from home, so she was always at the office. I'd crash, she'd work.

Days turned into years.

The plot of Date Night was thin, but Steve Carell and Tina Fey were funny and the jokes made me guffaw. But I saw something of my own life in the movie: the routine, the lack of spontaneity, the feeling of growing old and settling in. It -- along with a really hot Mark Wahlberg--was all there.

All too familiar.

Somehow, that's gotta change. My wife deserves better.

And so do I.