Date night, now with a side of weird

I thought it was kind of funny that several of you suggested withholding my blogging background to anyone I might find myself dating. Modern Friends, I have a confession: I've been out on a couple of dates, but he knows about the blogging. In fact, he knew about the Modern Gal's blogging before he knew the Modern Gal herself -- and he was still interested in a date. A good sign? Or is he just seeking the inevitable fame that comes from associating with the MG? Either way, I'll play along.

Anyway, I'm mentioning it now because I do have a funny dating story -- or at least a weird one. The tacky '80s prom that just happened -- that was him. And yet, I think our rendezvous on Tuesday night took the cake on random nights.

Because of work (we don't work together, but our jobs are somewhat related), we both found ourselves in Gatlinburg, a little mountain hamlet about an hour away from Knoxville for work on Tuesday. Here's what you need to know about Gatlinburg: it's the wedding capital of the South, and they have drive-through wedding chapels there; there's both a Ripley's Believe it or Not AND a Ripley's Aquarium; there's an airbrush T-shirt shop every 50 feet or so, and I think taffy is the top-selling food item there.

After a long day of work, we were both hungry. It was a nice night, so we decided to stick around and grab a little St. Patrick's Day dinner and beer at a restaurant with a second-story patio that offered a good view of the street below. And what a view we had. We had a great look at what almost turned out to be a nasty situation when a couple of preteens decided to run out in the middle of traffic. Apparently they missed the whole "look both ways before you cross" lesson in kindergarten.

About halfway through dinner -- one featuring burgers oozing with grease, barbecue sauce and cheese -- I noticed a gal on the balcony of the seafood restaurant across the street. In a wedding dress. Doing the whole "I'm the king of the world!" bit. I immediately had so many questions I wanted to ask her: Why the wedding dress on a Tuesday night? Did you get married at the seafood restaurant or is it just the reception site? If it's the reception site, where's your husband? I know if I'd just gotten married, I'd want my hubby to be doing the whole "king of the world" bit with me.

Maybe all of that is just funny to him and I in a you-had-to-be-there kind of way, but I'm willing to bet you might find this weird: we saw Santas. Yes, plural. There was a Santa convention going on in Gatlinburg that day and not only were there hundreds upon hundreds of bearded men dressed in red milling about the town, they'd also had a parade that afternoon. A St. Patrick's Day-themed Santa Parade. A few of the Santas were having some beers at the very restaurant where we were dining.

I'm pretty sure the only thing we were missing that night was Elvis, but if we had looked hard enough I'm willing to bet we would have found him.

Oh, and the beauty of a dinner date while on a work assignment? Expensing the check to our respective companies. Except that our waitress didn't quite understand what we were asking her to do when we asked her to split it, and his credit card came back charged with the two burgers and mine with the two beers. Whoops.