Be mine

About a week before Valentine's Day, Abraham sent me an email. Inside was a link. The link took me to an announcement that Waffle House would have a special Valentine's dinner.

Waffle House is located primarily in the South. It's a roadside diner found off interstate exits and is known for its interesting mix of patrons, including brawling Kid Rock, good ol' boys and the late-night drunk crowd. It's not a nice place. It's not a fancy place. So whether or not the chain intended it, it is with a hint of irony that it is dressing itself up for Valentine's Day.

The article boasted white tablecloths covering its scuffed booths, a prix fixe menu and dinner by candlelight. To eat at this 24-hour diner on Valentine's night, one needed to make a reservation. The tagline was 5-star service on a 1-star budget.

I closed the article and laughed. This exemplified Abraham's personality to do something like this and laugh at ourselves. I replied that I thought it was a great idea.

My coworker had gone on the same date the prior year. She said that neither she nor her boyfriend are romantic people, and this fit them well. She said she had a great time. She recommended that if there is a photo option, to take it.

We snickered as Abraham and I walked hand in hand into the diner. From the outside we could see that the store had covered its fluorescent globe lighting in pink plastic. "Isn't that a fire hazard?" I asked.

Abraham held the door open for me and we were quickly greeted by a manager in a suit with a clip board. "Excuse me," he said. "Do you have reservations?"

"Abraham. 8 o'clock."

He looked at his clip board. The reservations were written in green highlighter. The manager directed us to sit in the banquet chairs until a booth became ready.

Abraham looked around the small restaurant. "I can't believe so many people are here!"

"Baby, it's Georgia," I said. "Do I need to remind you about the Monster Truck Phenomenon?" For the past two years my friends have tried to go to the monster truck show at the Dome because we thought it would be funny, and both years the show was sold out by people who actually wanted to go. Shrugging and saying, It's Georgia seems to the only explanation.

The tables were cheesier than we imagined. The white tablecloths were the plastic kind found at children's birthday parties, and they were sticky from the diners before us. The flower vase was filled with red and pink carnations, not roses. The candlelight were two tea lights.

The waitress apologized and said she had only one heart napkin left. The napkin looked like it had seen better days. She placed it in the middle and told us we had to share it. I said the heart napkin was our centerpiece and I used it to cover one of the sticky spots on the table and placed the tea lights on top of it.

We had both wanted waffles from Waffle House, but they weren't on the prix fixe menu. We had our choice of steak, pork or chicken with salad and hashbrowns and a slice of pie for dessert. Pork was out of the question. We looked at each other. Do we dare? Do we order the T-bone steaks from Waffle House? The answer is yes.

"You know, I was thinking about it today," I said. "I've never eaten dinner here. I ate here once for breakfast with Lawyered, but otherwise it’s always after midnight when I'm drunk."

"I think I was here once before midnight, but it was still like 11:50 and I was drunk," he admitted.

Abraham had to ask for our salads. I never knew that salads were even on the menu here. Then our steaks arrived.

"Don't touch it!" I hollered at him. "I want a picture of this." We both paused as we snapped photos of our spread with our phones. I immediately uploaded mine to Facebook.

The steak wasn't bad. It was no worse than the one I had at Ruby Tuesday, but Abraham and I both agreed to stick to its breakfast menu in the future.

The waitress collected our plates. "Honey," she said to me. "Your chocolate pie is still frozen. We didn't know we would sell so much pie tonight. Would you like to swap it for another kind of pie, or would you like to take it to go?"

"Bring it out. If it's too frozen, I'll take it home," I said.

The waitress turned around to the short-order cook. "She said she still wants it!" she shouted across the diner. Abraham and I met each other’s glances and broke out into snickers.

She brought out the pies. "Would y'all like a picture?"

"Yes!" I had warned Abraham that I was told to not turn down the photo.

We leaned in to each other from across the booth and smiled for the camera. It was our first picture together. The plastic tablecloth, the carnations, the shared heart napkin have been captured for eternity.

We left the restaurant fuller than we anticipated and climbed into Abraham's car. I checked my phone and updated him on the Facebook comments on my Waffle House check in. He then uploaded his photo of dinner to Facebook and we began a contest of who had the most likes and comments.

Back at his house I produced a neatly wrapped present.

"Hold on," he said. He left his room and came back with a red envelope. "I just got you a card." The card was light and funny and compared me to a beer.

The fun date and the card were enough. I honestly wasn't expecting anything. More than anything, I was impressed he made it through the whole ordeal without once uttering "Hallmark-driven holiday."

Undecided on what to do for him for the day, I had gotten him a copy of the Kama Sutra and inscribed it, Here’s to making your heart race all the days of the year.

He laughed as he flipped through it. “I really need to lose some weight,” he remarked as he looked at the pictures of the models.

“You have to choose one tonight.”

He decided to start at the beginning of the book. Only there is only so many ways to put a p inside a v. The first 30 or so pages demonstrated different kissing and hugging techniques.

“It says to suck your tongue into my mouth,” he read.

I laughed as he tossed the book aside and came at me. He covered his mouth on mine and began sucking the air out of my mouth. I shrieked in giggles. It quickly dissolved into us trying to suck the air out of each other, which turned into blowing into each other. It was weird, and it was gross. But mostly it was funny.

And as we’re laughing and doing gross things to each other’s faces, our phones chimed with the Facebook likes and comments we were receiving about our date. We were tied in likes, but he was beating me in comments.

My phone chimed again.

“Ooh! Maybe I’m winning now!” I said as I retrieved my phone that was tangled in his sheets.

And, on Valentine’s night, I received a friend request from Christopher.