The wife and I went out Saturday night for our vewwy fust Vawwentine's Day togevver as a mawwied couple! Awww! Isn't that just the oopsiest-loo? Fortunately, we aren't really this nauseating together, except in that I-hate-happy-couples way that I remember so well from being a bitter single person, and there's not much we can do about that. So we just avoid all our single, bitter former friends for now--we'll reconnect with them once time grinds us into the jaded, vituperative couple of backbiters that sitcoms through the ages have assured us we will inevitably become.

We went down to deepest, darkest, gentrificationest Belltown for a nice prix fixe dinner at Marco's Supper Club, a medium-swank spot that we've always liked. The eponymous owner Marco, a spectrally courtly gentleman unswervingly dressed in tweed, likes to stalk about the place helping people with their coats and lighting cigarettes; with his demeanor, his dress, his height of well over six feet, and finally his ungainly shock of graying hair, he looks rather like a former basketball star whose crippling ankle injury forced him unhappily into some weird form of restaurant-based academe.

We went a little early so we could have a drink at the bar--our first step in utterly demolishing the prix fixe illusion of budgetary restraint--and surveyed the other patrons. An early alarm: at a table of four were seated two middle aged couples, just getting started in, and fully embracing the unspoken class system we have in this country, I immediately judged them. The women wore the sort of offhandedly gaudy clothing that betrayed the fact that they simply had too much money: gold chains in place of belts, tiny purses of brightly-hued leather, altogether too much makeup, and coifs that crouched tensely and blondly on their skulls. Going rather too far in the other direction, the men looked like vacationing RV salesmen: careless short-sleeve shirts, rumpled Dockers, and sullen, gelled hair. I took an instant dislike to them, which was hardly mitigated by the speech pattern of one of the women: SHE BRAYED EVERY FUCKING THING SHE SAID AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE. She was like some fucking awful mechanical mule crafted out of bent brass. The whole scene was intolerable, and I prayed for respite.

Naturally, we were seated right next to them. However, what I thought was total disaster turned out to be okay, as down amongst the actual din of the room (away from the bar), it was much easier to lose the howling in the general noise of the place. Also, mule-woman was seated with her back to us, so her throat-cone weapon pointed at some other luckless bastards across the room.

We continued throwing gasoline onto our ongoing bill fire by ordering a ridiculously great bottle of wine from our scampering waiter and resumed making uncharitable comments about other diners. One couple seated at the bar occasionally interrupted their dinners to periodically grope one another and engage in some fairly enthusiastic necking. This is kind of icky to have to witness in the best of circumstances, but in a classy restaurant . . . and the guy is kind of a frightening, unclassifiable xenomorph . . . and she has a simply stupendous nose . . . all of these details add up. I mean, look, I'm certainly not saying I'm not funny-looking, because I kind of am, but then, I don't ostentatiously give my gal the facehugger treatment at crowded restaurants either. So we didn't feel bad about covertly mocking them too much. Emphasis on "covertly," since he would have beat me stupid had he caught me.

At one point, the wife said, "Too bad you're not sitting here. I'm getting quite a show." I discreetly turned around and saw a woman wearing the plungiest of necklines, and when she laughed, it looked like her tits were mounting an incursion on her skull. I love my wife.

At any rate, our food eventually started appearing. I opened with a Caesar's salad and the wife had oysters on the half-shell and shut up, dude. For the entrees, I opted for the good old heart-shocker, tenderloin wrapped in bacon (along with some horrifyingly delicious truffled mashed potatoes and a red wine demiglace to boot). The wife had gone for the roast lamb, and as she ate, I mentally entertained myself by using the lamb voice from the Simpson's episode where Lisa goes vegetarian. Why don't you looo-oove me? What did I do to yoooo-oou? Then various gruesome mental lamb-screams as my wife chewed the unfortunate little beast. I felt it best not to share this interior dialogue for all concerned.

It was a phenomenal meal, one of those rare ones where everything clicks, and as we gamely dug into the dessert--a chocolate pot de creme--I happened to glance up at the table of awful people that I had been so worried about, when one of the ladies was saying something I happened to catch briefly. It may have been a joke. I hope it was a joke. Because the bit I caught was her leaning back in her chair, preparing her delivery, then popping her eyes out and while craning forward again, said, in swooping tones: "Caaaaaaaaa-mel tooooooooe!" To the general hilarity of her tablemates.

I dropped my spoon, utterly unnerved, and by now completely unheedful of the bill, swiftly ordered a cognac. I relayed what had just transpired to the wife, and she said, "What?" I couldn't really add any more to that: Yeah, that was a big fucking "What?"

It will be my little test to her on next year's Valentine's Day. I'm going to get a big-ass card, one of those fluffy bastards with flowers and pink and oogy sentiments, and on the inside I will write "Caaaaaaaaa-mel tooooooooooe! Love, Skot," and see if she remembers. Or, even better, if she just reads the card and then says, "What?"