Forget candlelight and romance! Throw away the preconceived notion of dancing until dawn. 
A night at the opera in the city followed by a moonlight stroll along the shoreline, ridiculous! You see, I have found the ultimate date night for parents! An evening filled with laughter, food, shopping and a stroll along the parkway! Oh yes its true! Wine, it’s there, gourmet fare, got it! Supplies to cover any unexpected emergency? Yep, right inside the door! Movies? Ah yes! Dessert? Only as much as you can eat!!! Valet parking? Sadly no. So there isn’t everything you’d ever want for a date night but it’s still pretty fantastic!
If you are a parent or married couple with kids this is the place for you!
COSTCO
Yep that’s right ladies and gentlemen, my wife and I have been clamoring to go on a date quite some time. Between Softball, swimming, horses, fair animals and 4-H it seems our calendar is full 99% of the time! So tonight after a long day of breaking apart domestic disputes between our four lovely (sarcasm) children! My wife mumbles an exasperated “I have to go to COSTCO”. We are never going to be alone ever again are we? This is usally where the sobbing begins….
Hold that thought honey!
Enter the infamous COSTCO! Entertainment mega, all in one, grocery, everything household and then some superstore to the masses. I use the word entertainment in describing COSTCO, because once you look around it’s quite obvious you arent in Kansas anymore. (Unless of course you are at a COSTCO in Kansas then it’s a moot point)
So being rather quick at deducing problems I arrived at a summation; the only way we’re going to achieve some alone time would be to abandon the little heathens (aaahhhhemmm our sweet children) at home to fend for themselves while we stroll the isle ways of the local COSTCO hand in hand. All together now… AAAAHHHHHHH!
So I locked up the weapons, hid the duct tape and padlocked the knife drawer. Left the 15-year-old in charge with more than ample directions to insure his success. Told said 15-year-old not to play XBox ( hard request to make with a straight face) the whole time, but focus instead on his little brother who is starving for big brothers attention. Turned to the middle two, pointed a short stumpy finger at them with a reminder that nothing should be damaged or misplaced upon our arrival home. 
I received a tweedle dee and tweedle dumb nod of acknowledgment. Then without haste I swept the misses off her feet and into the car with hopes of clearing the driveway before one of them felt the need to ruin the moment with an unfounded emergency!
My wife and I laughed as we cruised down the road with no kids in the car, stereo up loud pumping some 80′ Van Halen, sunroof open we’re pushing 75mph, whoop whoop! We continued to laugh the way I imagine D.B. Cooper chuckled after stealing $200,000.00 dollars and possibly committing the perfect crime! It was ours all ours! Two, maybe three hours without interuption! Oh sure we would be surrounded by other families, No doubt we would hear children crying and screaming, fighting and whining! But they weren’t ours!!! T-H-E-Y-W-E-R-E-N-T-O-U-R-S! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
We arrived at COSTCO immediately finding a parking spot right up front. (good sign so far) 
grabbed a cart and off we strolled through checkpoint Charlie. I flashed my “executive” members card which instantly lets the fine young security lad know that, well, I m kind of a big deal! He acknowledges my glossy black plastic ticket to paradise with a sly wink and nod! Without haste the privileged are ushered inside! Let the carnage begin! Its only once you are inside the magnitude of this building truly takes your breath away. It lays before us like a blank canvas of consumerism! Waiting for us to fill it with colors and vision. Each item placed into our cart is an expression of our lives. A snapshot of likes and dislikes. We are a tapestry smeared with food, wine and bathroom supplies!
Our evening is proceeding well, I feel a second date may arise from this encounter. We are chatting like we’ve known each other most of our lives! (oh wait we have) We also find ourselves blindly strolling down each and every isle. We have no need for a 50lb bag of kitty litter, but it’s reassuring to know if we did need some it was there! The international fare is delicious! 
There are free food tasting stations spread throughout the store allowing you to sample a little bit of everything from around the world on sale this week. Brilliant!! Halfway through the store I stopped the cart, took my wifes hand, slowly leaned forward-looking her dead in the eye, I proclaimed ever so softly: do you hear that my love? She chuckeld, snuggled up real close to me, then placed her other hand over my heart. While pressing up against my chest, she whispered I do. I hear it so loudly it hurts. Silence.
Somewhere between 20lb tubs of peanut butter and 54 packs of 4 ply toilet paper, in a Sunday packed COSTCO, two people held each other in silence. Neither one of 
us could hear the hundreds of people talking. No kids screaming at us, no little children needing something every two or three minutes. No teenagers fighting over the remote control eventually ending up wrestling where inevitably someone gets hurt. No back talking, sniveling, whining, complaining or crying and that’s just from us!
Nope a romance was rekindled today, a date was made and kept. We didn’t need all those fancy date night stereotypes to make it happen. Some may refer to me as a cheap bastard, or possibly a loser husband for not blocking out the time, creating a proper night away. I say pishaw! I took a bad situation and improvised! By the end of the day my wife professed her undying affection and I still ended up footing the bill for $350.00 dollars! (approximate cost of dinner and the opera for two) The only difference is instead of one night at the opera with dinner afterwards; the Ipod is charged up and we’re all going to eat for weeks!
Whose the loser now!!!
They call me Betty 