Guys, Please Don't Sabotage Mom's Night Out

Every once in a blue moon, between the kids’ softball games and their karate practices, we moms get a night out on the town to eat fried pickles and drink martinis to our heart’s content. Or at least until 9:30 when the husband texts to bring home Resolve because the dog peed on the carpet again.

It’s a time when we can feel like women again instead of “just moms.” Happily married, we go for the female camaraderie, relieved to no longer have to play the bar scene.

But that’s bull. Because happily married or not, we still want to turn a head or two. We’re not going home with anyone – and most likely we won’t even acknowledge anyone of the opposite sex – but damnit, sometimes one glance helps remind us there’s still a 22-year-old vixen in a 1997 fuzzy crop top and Brenda Walsh choker underneath our Ann Taylor Capri pants.

So, throw a mom a bone, gentleman. When you see one out, here are things you can do to make her feel like a million bucks, or even just $10 in Kohl’s cash.

Watch your vernacular

My favorite drinking establishment in our sleepy college town is a dive bar where the bands are good and the bar serves up dark Irish cider on draft.

It’s also populated with a bevy of bearded grad students that would send 23-year-old me swooning.

On one particularly busy night, I pushed my way to the bar where I was ignored by the bartender for the stream of sorority girls clamoring for Amaretto sours. I was getting frustrated and longed for my couch and Friends reruns. That’s when I noticed a particularly handsome beard smiling at me from a bar stool.

“Ma’am, do you need me to help you get a drink?”

Ma’am? Did you say ma’am? In a bar?

Ma’am is fine when the 16-year-old cashier at Target is chasing me down because I forgot to grab one of my grocery bags. But in a bar where I already out-age the patrons by a good 16 years, I feel ancient.

The only ma’am that should be heard is on the dance floor and coming from the mouth of Carl Carlton belting out “She’s a Bad Mama Jama”. It’s then I realized referencing an R&B hit from 1981 didn’t help my case.

My initial response was, “Well, yes sonny, Ensure on the rocks, please.” But seeing the avalanche of thirsty college kids about to pin me against the bar, I dedicated to take him up on it.

“Yes, if you could get his attention please, that would be great.”

I got my bourbon, he got his Boy Scout patch for helping an old lady, and I slunk back to my seat defeated.

Master the small talk

At a club down the road one evening, a particularly randy older gentleman on the dance floor began the courtship ritual with “Humpty Dance” as his soundtrack. After a little small talk about the music, he launched into the personal questions.

“So,” he said. “Do you have kids?”

“Yes, I have two little girls.”

“Planning on having more?”

“Oh no, my husband and I are done.”

“Done? Do you still have your uterus?”

I stared at him while Humpty Hump serenaded the most uncomfortable pick-up line ever uttered.

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

“Well many women of a certain age get their uterus removed. It’s all good. A woman is still sexy without her uterus.”

“Stop saying uterus! In fact, my uterus is exhausted, and it needs a drink.”

Granted, my nights out are far and few between, but are conversations about reproductive organs commonplace now? Ok, I understand d*** picks, but menopause and hysterectomy small talk? Gentleman, no.

Lie. For my sake, please.

Finally, after spending all day stuck in the cold and the rain with two little girls who were anything but calm and a husband traveling for work, I needed to get out of the house. And spend it with a plate of mozzarella sticks.

It didn’t matter that I was wearing yoga pants and my eyelids were barren of shadow and I hadn’t showered all day. I needed to get these madwomen out of my house so I could drown my sorrows in a Coca-Cola with free refills.

As the little ones played on a video game, I finished my meal (and theirs – go on, judge) when a little glass of heaven with a cherry was set before me.

“It’s from the guy over there,” the waitress said, pointing to an older gentleman at the bar.

What? Even with all that hair curling and mascara swirling in college, I never had a drink bought for me. But cover up my dandruff with a Chicago Bears hat, and I’m Sofia-freakin-Vergara.

“I wish I could drink it,” I said sadly. “But I’m driving my girls home.”

As we walked out, I stopped by the bar to thank my gentleman and to let him down easy – to tell him that yes, I know you want to get all over this piece of greasy hotness with the marinara sauce on her  chin, but it’s all taken.

“I just wanted to thank you for the drink,” I said. “That was very nice of you.”

He studied me with a look I can only associate with the one I give my arthritic 13-year-old dog when she tries to pull herself up from the floor.

“I remember when my little girls could get crazy like that. You just looked so tired and exhausted, I thought you could use a drink. From one parent to another.”

I should have said that was sweet. And thoughtful. And generous. But the only thing that raged through my head was:

“Oh my god! That was a pity drink?”

But instead I muttered, “Uh yeah, solidarity, brother” and gave him a fist bump. Then I ran out as fast as I could, with my Pigpen dirt trail behind me.

So here’s the deal. Gentleman, we old married women aren’t at the bar to flirt or go home with you. But if you see us drinking after a long day, when we feel rundown and exhausted, make us feel like the college girl we think we still are. A quick smile and some good conversation can make our evening.

Or at least, forgo arthritic golden retriever looks.