Date Night

My husband and I are sitting outside at a restaurant and there's a couple at the table closest to the sidewalk with a massive, tough-looking Shar-Pei.

A small group of older folks walk up, they seem to know the couple, and exchange pleasantries.  Then, completely unprovoked, the dog starts growling and barking at one of the friends.

We're sitting just a few feet from them so I'm kind of freaked out, but really all I can think is... I left the house without my camera, oh man. Fortunately I have back up, a Blackberry Pearl with a pretty poor excuse for a camera, but it's all I've got.


The guy and the Shar-Pei (taken as I pretend I'm reading email on my Blackberry and not at all paying attention this dog who deserved to be The Dog Whisperer's next bitch).

The "friends" escaped the chaos and went inside the restaurant. The dog couple looked like they were chuckling about the dog not liking the guy. From that point on, the dog stared down and ferociously barked at people for the next 30-45 minutes.

Out of nowhere a guy and a drunk girl (who looked like she'd be fun to hang with) barge on the scene. The drunk girl runs up to the dog (who was still barking like a lunatic), and begins telling him (the dog) that she has "one just like him at home" and "give her a kiss". Huh? Girlfriend, you are a whack job.

Just when we thought it couldn't get much more bizarre, Nutty Drunk Girl lies down on the sidewalk, on her back at the dog's feet, on the busy sidewalk, whilst psycho-canine is getting crazier by the second, his teeth just inches from her face. She continues telling the dog, "I have one just like you at home, give me a kiss, I know you're a sweet boy".

Nutty Drunk Girl's boyfriend remains standing by, just watching and putting out a no big deal, she does this all the time vibe. Nutty Drunk Girl then gets up off the sidewalk and tells the dog's owner to take him off the leash.


This is Nutty Drunk Girl knelt down speaking to the guy and the dog (which is under the table being restrained), urging him to take the dog off his leash so she could "cuddle him".

At some point the restaurant owner comes outside and suggests to Nutty Drunk Girl and Silent Observer Boyfriend, that they "must be lost", and should move along. And finally, the Crazy Dog Couple pay their bill (they don't say "check" in Australia), and are on their way too.


Bye, and thanks for leaving us relieved, yet very entertained.

Only minutes later, an older guy wearing shorts (it's winter and pretty cold), who we thought was probably Canadian- hence, the tolerance to high winds) sits down at the table behind us. Now instead of visibly witnessing the drama, we can only hear it.

Our mutual waitress walks up to the guy and says, "Will there be two of you?". "One", he says. "Okay, only one". We're thinking, nice way to make him feel good about dining solo, biatch. Ugh, how thoughtless.

She comes back to take his order. He says, "Where's the hamburger on this menu?". She says, "I don't read the menu, but I think it's under Snacks." Yeah, I think it's actually under Sandwiches, dumbass. About five seconds later the dude shouts "I've never paid $20 dollars for a hamburger!", then gets up and walks away down the street. Perhaps not particularly funny to you, but hysterical to us since we basically want to say that every time we take our wallets out here.

Finally, we moved on to the romantic part of date night, Woolworths. I'm not a fan of shopping there, I miss Publix --"Where Shopping is a Pleasure". We walked the aisles and pointed at things like the 6-pack of diet coke for $7.48, or the box of four ice cream bars for $7.22, and exclaimed, "I've never paid $20 for a hamburger!" then bust out laughing, much to the dismay of the much more dignified Australians around us. They should probably shop during the day if the want to be in the company of well-behaved customers. We only wish we were laughing because it was funny; we laugh to keep from crying.