Hello, readers! Devin and Treanna here. We're trying an experiment in which we attempt to co-write a blog post. So you can follow along at home, Devin will be posting in normal type, while Treanna posts in italics.
I'll start. Or do you want to go first, T?
Yeah.
...okay, go for it.
I said, "You!"
Oh. My bad. iTunes is turned up a notch too loudly, I guess. Quit snickering, it's unbecoming. So where do we start?
We start out with before we went to the theater.
Sounds good. Why don't you continue?
We went to McDonald's for lunch. We had chicken nuggets and water.
No fries?
Okay, we had fries. We ate them in the parking lot by the movie theater. We chatted while eating. We had two different kinds of sauces: BBQ and Sweet & Sour.
Tell them about the word games you were playing with "Sweet & Sour."
Oh yeah! Okay. I called Sweet & Sour "Sweet & Four."
I have a question. Why'd we go out to lunch and then to the theater?
Because, um...hmmm. Because we went on a father-and-daughter date!
A father-and-daughter date? What are those?
It's a date where a daughter and her father go out and do something. It gives her more time to get used to the boys, so she can date them.
More specifically, it's to give her a baseline of expected behavior for a date. Once she heads out on her own with her date, I want her to have high expectations on how she deserves to be treated. We don't go nuts -- this first one, for example, we didn't bother to dress up in special clothes, and the cuisine was the lowest of the low -- but I did little things for her, like ask her opinions on things, hold doors open for her, and give her a chance to practice her one-on-one social skills in a safe setting. I remember going on my first date -- I was terrified, because I didn't know what to expect. I only had all those bad '80s movies to go by.
Really? Did you really have those '80s movies? Tell me about them.
Well, as your mother would point out, they really suck. The boy and the girl get all dressed up and go out to a fancy restaurant . Since (usually) neither one of them were used to that kind of food or restaurant, they were uncomfortable with the menu, with the expectations of the setting. Add all the sexual tension into the mix, and it was a recipe for, well, extreme awkwardness.
Strange. Let's get on with the story.
<chuckle> Okay. I'll be sure to add a couple of the relevant movies to the Netflix queue in a couple of years, though, so you can see what I'm talking about. In the meantime, think about the date scene from the book of "A Walk to Remember."
Ohhhh! Okay, where was I?
In the parking lot of the theater, in our car, scarfing down chicken nuggets and playing word games with your sauce.
Well, we finished. We went inside and bought our tickets.
What were we going to see?
Flicka. <woohoo!> Finding the movie was easy. It was right there just as we walked in; it was right in front. I got the seats and saved one for Daddy.
...I told you, it's "Dad." Not "Daddy," not "Pops" or "Poppy." Got it, kid?
Sorry! Okay. He went off to go get popcorn and pop. Then he came back and I went to the bathroom before the movie started.
My idea. I didn't want her to have to miss part of the movie half-way through.
I came in just as the movie was about to start. The movie was AWESOME. Dad was really amazed by who played the father.
Tim McGraw. Actually, I'd been somewhat interested in seeing the movie, because I've never read the original book. Then I found out Tim McGraw was playing the dad, and suddenly I had attitude failure. It's not that I dislike Tim McGraw, but he's one of those country stars who currently can do no wrong and is constantly in the news. I've been Tim McGraw'd out...or thought I had.
The person who played the daughter...
...Alison Lohman...
...was a really great actress. My favorite part in the movie was all the horse parts.
Raise your hands, everyone who is surprised by that.
Didn't think so.
Dad! Mean Dad!
<smile>
We saw all the pictures at the end.
Yeah, that was pretty cool. As Tim's song "My Little Girl" is playing over the end credits, they show a montage of photographs of young girls with horses. All sorts of girls -- really young to young ladies in college, from all walks of life.
Even a baby.
Yup. They're dressed in every getup imaginable, decades back through modern times. English, Western, high money, dirt-poor working ranch. And every single one of them are intent on their horses, even when they're aware of the camera. They're focused on the horse.
So we were about to go out when I saw the Dance Dance Revolution game, which I really like to play. And we played it.
Not that I wanted to. Can't dance. Two left feet. Complete lack of coordination. Alas, I had precisely enough change left to feed the machine, and I couldn't very well say "No" after being exposed to two hours of heart-melting father-daughter bonding, now could I?
You kicked my butt!
<smile> Can't let you get completely spoiled, dear.
I told you I was going to win.
Shouldn't brag.
Shucks.
So after a valuable life lesson was learned, and I was sure I wasn't going to drop dead from my unwonted exertion, we piled in the car and came on home. It was a great afternoon, one that should inaugurate a new tradition.
You forgot that I got to sit in the front of the car.
So I did. I wasn't about to have you thinking I was your hired driver.
Bye-bye, guys.
So that's it?
Yes.
Right, then. Thanks for reading!