I wanted to scream trick or treat the other night on my date. As in is this a trick? I thought that getting wine should be a treat, as in you Mr. Date would treat me to my wine--not so. We met at a wine bar for drinks. Drinks only. (As an aside, I’d like to mention that the wine bar served free chees appetizers that night.) We each had 2 glasses of wine (Yes I realize this date fell during my 21 Day Challenge when alcohol was forbidden but I scrapped the rules in lieu of living my life and going on a normal date…but was it really that normal?). When the check came my date asked the waiter to put part of our wine tab on one credit card—his work credit card and the other portion of our wine tab on his personal credit card. You see, my date’s company allows him to expense up to $25 on non-meal items (apparently, like the wine you drink on first dates). So my date figured out the bill and how he was going to expense our date—excuse me, part of our date—to his company. He calculated the bill so that it came up as $23 on his work credit card—he didn’t want to make it too close to $25, because the company would figure it out.
Figure it out? How about you figure this out—it’s tacky to cheap out on the first date. My two glasses of wine for $20 were too expensive for you that you had to expense it? Really? I'll tell you what was worth the $20, the time and effort it took me to get ready for that date and walk there in the rain. My eye makeup was perfect that night. Absolutely perfect.
This surprised me. But hey I guess I’m getting the bottom of the barrel since I’m still dating at 35. Funny thing—my friend who set Mr. Expense Account and me up mentioned that one of her worst first dates happened when the guy asked her to choose where they were going to eat dinner from an array of coupons he fanned out in front of her like a hand of cards in a game of Go Fish. I haven’t told her about this expense account business. But I consider it akin to making one choose a coupon for dinner.
