A Date at the Fabric Store

Brian and I had a date night sans kids last night.  And it was pretty lame as far as dates go.  Not because of who I was with but because of what we had on our to-do list.  We are undergoing a pretty fun house project right now (pictures coming in the next few weeks) and as much as I'd love to tow the kids along to a fabric store followed by a home improvement store, well, I don't.  I'd rather pound my head against a wall, honestly.

Brian's all in on this project so he didn't mind taking up precious quality time together to go pick out a few materials.  The first stop was a craft shop to pick out fabric for a cushion cover.  I'm an anti-craft person so these places scare the crap out of me.  I try to limit my visits to twice a year and even writing the word "twice" just now gives me the cold sweats.

So we park the car and walk through the automatic doors.  I spot the fabric department and start making a bee line.  But Brian was still frozen at the entrance.  I noticed he wasn't following me so I turned back to look at him.

"OH. MY. GOODNESS."

And he said it just like that.  Three complete statements.  I never even thought about the fact that (a) Brian has never been in one of these types of stores and (b) he didn't even know these types of stores existed.

"This is going to be like the T.J. Maxx of my childhood, isn't it?"

Brian's mom used to torture her children at T.J. Maxx.  Torture, of course, being the word Brian uses.  Me?  I'd call it being real.

The woman had six children!  Can you imagine back-to-school shopping with six kids?  Four of whom are boys, who, on any day of the week would choose a slow, painful death rather than shopping for clothes.

But I know the truth.  T.J. Maxx boasts quality, name-brand clothing at ridiculously low prices.  When you have that many kids you've got to make your buck stretch.

"What's so bad about T.J. Maxx?" I once asked Brian.

According to him it was the ultimate betrayal in the mother/son relationship because not only did they have to go shopping for clothes but they had to do it in a store that contain no cool toys.

So back to our scary craft trip.  I look back at Brian, who is still stunned into utter disbelief and say, "This is no fun for me either so let's get it over with."

And here comes the part where I tell you this is one of the biggest reasons I married Brian Nash.  He can turn any lame, boring, torturous event into knee-slapping, tears-down-your-cheeks, side-splitting fun.

Immediately I immerse myself in fabric trying to find the perfect color, perfect pattern.  Immediately Brian starts pulling out ridiculous black fabrics with candy corn printed all over it.

"Too much?" He asks with a straight face, "What do you think?"

Then he spots fabric by Sandra Lee from Semi-Homemade on the Food Network.  If you don't know this woman you won't get the joke but, of course, Brian starts channeling her voice, "And this is just regular fabric from the fabric store."

At one point Brian becomes silent and I can't find him.  I start looking up and down all the aisles.  Finally I find him laughing to himself in the book section.  I can only imagine what he's found.

"Brian.  What are you doing?  C'mon.  Let's go."

"Wait," he says, "I think we need to get this."