The best way to entice your spouse to a night on the town is to compromise on a mutual idea of fun. To do this you must respect your own needs and wants, while carefully considering the desires of your mate.
Seduction changes as you age. The days of passionate promises have been reduced to short characters sent via text. Here is an example of the flirting that comes after 20 years of monogamous bantering now entering the wireless age: “Need a date night badly with a violent movie and buttered popcorn.” The correct response, volleyed almost immediately by my Carpenter, is: “Ahh … popcorn.”
You see how I did that? I turned the Carpenter on in one simple step that promised him hot buttered popcorn, two hours of car chases, explosions, near-naked super-models and gun battles in a setting where he would not need to talk to me, answer my interrogating hypothetical questions or listen to me prattle on about female stuff.
What’s in it for me? Daniel Craig and hot buttered popcorn, which borders on fantasy, especially when we’re late and seated in the front row. Daniel Craig up close. Sigh. The newest installment of the James Bond series was the mutually agreed-upon film of the night.
It was the best idea I’d had all week, and what a brutal week it had been. There was family drama, work drama, kids who have learned to talk back, and a list of obligations that weren’t being met. Every parent knows this dark place. Our lifeboat seemed to be springing a leak at every end. As fast as we’d stop one leak, another would sprout. There were worries stacking up and what-if’s toppling over, to the point that the only way to get perspective was to jump out and go for a swim.
It was heavenly to munch in unison while someone else’s problems unfolded on the silver screen before our eyes. Two sugar-loaded soda pops and two over-stuffed bags of chemically enhanced, artery-choking popcorn were exactly what the marriage doctor ordered.
Actually, a little Daniel Craig doesn’t hurt a marriage either (nudge, nudge). I mean, who makes thighs look that good in a Tom Ford suit? Note to self: this is not a good question to ask your spouse during the train explosion scene.
All in all, it was the best of the 007 movies I have seen.
Walking to my car after the show, I found myself caught up in the intrigue of spy life. I pretended my Toyota was an Aston Martin and dreamed of a life free of carpools, housework and 6:30am hockey practices, replaced with an expense account, exotic destinations and free martinis (shaken, not stirred).
I decided to flirt with danger.
“Hun, how about from now on you call me “Q,” like Bond calls his lead tech specialist?”
“No,” the Carpenter said flatly.
“Okay, how about you call me “M”? She was his ‘everything,’ like I am to you.”
“Absolutely not,” he replied.
“Miss Moneypenny?” I inquired. “She’s hot.”
“Seriously? Stop. Now,” he said.
Marriage to me is an adventure. No stunt doubles required. Daniel Craig: call me.