FIRST DATES DATE NIGHT

The OH and I like watching 'First Dates'.

He likes the young couples. I like the old couples.

This week, the old couple are octogenarians Eric and Jenny, who have lost spouses to cancer. Eric is an ardent devotee of Argentinian tango.  Jenny likes rock festivals and 'Snow Patrol'.

"Not sure I can watch old people eating cheese fondue", says the OH, as Eric and Jenny tuck into starters.

"Why not?" I say.

"Reminds me of pus", he says.

To be fair, it is Jenny who says the fondue looks like "bandages", so maybe it is she who puts the thought in his head.  But I am still indignant.

"D'you think people would be revolted by the sight of us sharing a cheese fondue?" I say.

"We're not that old yet", he says.

I am not convinced.

"No, but say I dropped an after-dinner mint down my top and had to ferret around between my shrunken dugs to retrieve it, would people reach for the sick bucket?"

He sighs.

"Or, say they had to watch me lifting an oyster to my shrivelled oral cavity, then suck the oyster out like it was eighty-year-old cum, would they end up blowing chunks on their dinner?"

"Or, if I was moving my thinning lips along the length of a moist corn of the cob shaft, gripping it with veiny claws, dropping butter on my chin hair, would people be trampling each other to fucking death in a stampede for the door? Would they?!!!"

"I"m missing the programme", he says.

A twenty two year old lingerie model walks through the restaurant door. The young men stare.  One man does a 360 degree head spin that is ickier than the head spin in 'The Exorcist'. His eyeballs bulge the fuck out of their sockets, like he's the result of millennia of inbred pug breeding.

"Thing I like about the old people is they have lovely stories", I say. "They know who they are. The young couples flounder around a bit until they discover they both like chihuahuas and/or 'The Lion King'. Also, who in the name of christ 'blow dries' their vagina?!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" he says.

"Laura from Kent", I say. "Remember her? Blow dries her 'noo noo' before a date. The one who said she used to be "a lesbican".

"A lesbican?"

"A lesbican."

Meanwhile, Eric and Jenny are being asked whether they'd like to see each other again. Eric says yes. Jenny says yes. Eric is going to teach Jenny the tango. Jenny plans to cook Eric a fondue-free feast.

"All they talk about is their dead wives, husbands", says the OH. "It's great they haven't given up, that they've come out the other side, but it's still depressing".

"I think First Dates should do a bereavement special" I say, as the end credits roll.  "It would be ray of sunshine in a youth-obsessed schedule."

"Fucksake", says the OH.