| 1-Year Anniversary w/ Serena was extremely enjoyable. If I could sum up the day in one word, it'd be "coupons."
We started off the morning with light breakfast at Starbucks - FREE PASTRY DAY with purchase of hand-crafted drink (with coupon of course)! =) Afterward, we went to open an account together... a Kroger's Plus awards account. Upon entering most Kroger's you have a floral section, and I was like, "Serena, do you want some roses?" She goes, "mmmm... nooooo I don't need it." What she didn't know was in my pocket, I had $2 off of Premium Select Dozen Roses. I was hoping she'd want it there/then to save me from a trip later to come back to Kroger's. Oh well. We went back to our respective homes for lunch. In the afternoon, she studied PCAT and had an orthodontist appointment, and I... well... I was too excited to enjoy the evening with her so I didn't really do anything. I was just waiting for the clock to pass until 6:30pm, when I would pick her up for dinner. Funny thing is, I almost had a typical "guy-failure" moment. Serena wanted me to surprise her for dinner, and so I had 3 restaurants to choose from (and when I say "choose" that means I have coupons to go there, and they are classy/nice restaurants). I was thinking, "Tuesday evening... not a holiday - no problem - there's gotta be seats available." Around 3:00pm, I start searching at Open Table to make online reservations. One place had earliest availability at 8:45pm, another had either 5:45pm or 8:15pm, and the third one ... had a voicemail message that said, "We are temporarily closed..."  So I'm thinking, "Dangit!!! I can't believe this is happening to me!! Where are we going to go?! I don't have anymore coupons!!" But wait! Just the other day, I had gotten the RSVP coupons in the mail, and I had remembered a $25 off 2 entree purchase at Carlo & Johnny (Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse)!! I was like, "YES! COUPON!" And so I looked online to make reservations (6:45pm - perfect), and then to check the menu, b/c Serena doesn't eat steak... haha and I'm taking her to a steak house. Luckily they had other things like veal chops, lamb chops, pork chops, chicken, and salmon... and she got the salmon, which was quite good. I ended up getting the 14oz NY Strip Steak (I'm getting hungry again thinking about all of this). Finally, in between texting my brother Roger for steak ideas (b/c I don't know much about steaks, and he does, and he's been to a Jeff Ruby's before), I needed to figure out my outfit. I'm the kind of guy that actually LIKES matching the girl... but Serena is the kind of girl that HATES that. So I started going through my closet and laying out clothes ideas with dress shirts, ties, suits, sports-jacket, jeans, dress pants, etc. I was trying different combinations on (feels like high school), and I really wanted to wear this sports-jacket (beige/tan/light colored) that I'd bought a long time ago. So I found this pair of jeans and a white dress shirt that I had just bought from gap. I was almost running late (b/c I was seriously spending like an hour and half on this, and I had to go get those roses still). I was so excited, and I put on the jeans and the gap dress shirt, grabbed the sports-jacket, threw it on, ran to the mirror, and saw ... a subtle but terrible fashion faux pas: black buttons on the dress shirt, and brown buttons on the jacket. I was like, "DANG IT!" and I was running late, so I looked through my closet for this really old sports jacket I have, and couldn't find it. In the end, I grumbled, "sigh... black leather jacket will do...", and I grabbed it and left for Kroger's. After getting the dozen of red roses from Kroger's and on my way back to Serena's house, I'm holding the roses in one hand, and driving with the other. This black guy in the car next to me saw me and nodded his head at me with a smile. I gave my toothy-grin and nodded back. Upon arriving at Serena's home at 6:30 sharp, I get out of the car and walk to the door, just as she is exiting her door. She's paying attention going down her steps more than me, b/c she's wearing high heels. After she gets down the steps, I'm close to her and I smile and hand her the flowers. She goes, "awwwww.. you got me flowers?? whyyyy??" *pause here for a thought* - Most guys would say ... probably something to the extent of this: "Because I LOOOOVE YOUUUUU!! <3 <3 <3" Guess what I said? *unpause* She goes, "awwwww.. you got me flowers?? whyyyy??" Me, very excitedly, "Because I had a COUPON!"  She actually wasn't upset at my response and just smiled and carefully walked back up the steps to put the flowers in her house. Later, over dinner, I realized the ... dating faux-pas... and I told her about it. She had actually thought it was funny and didn't care. She found my receipt from Kroger's as I was taking out my wallet to pay for dinner, and she goes, "$8.50 for a dozen roses?! That's really good!!" Me: "I KNOW!!!!!!" (side note - that was the very first purchase using our shared Kroger's Plus Rewards Account =P) We ended the evening by going to the library, borrowing Gran Torino, and watching it at her parents' home. The End. 
 |