Not According To Plan

Big plans sometimes go anything but according to plan, we went out with Bob and Martha for a date night on Saturday and the girls had everything planned out as to where we were going to eat and what movie we were going to see, Bob and I smiled and nodded our heads because we knew everything would work out well.

Have you ever been to the Elephant Bar and Grill? The plan for supper was to go there, Cindy and I had never been and excitedly looked over the menu online before we met up with Bob and Martha and had a good idea of what we were going to order, Chicken and Shrimp Jambalaya looked very good to me and I was set on ordering this. Remember me asking if you had ever been there, well as the plans changed neither have I.

We left Bob and Martha’s house right on time and were on our way to the restaurant when we passed an “Open House”, this property was “according to legend” the sight of a murder in the past and is a very large estate, stopping here wasn’t in our plans but Bob made a turn into the driveway and next thing I know we are going through a house that was once priced at two million dollars, yep I can see me living here amongst the ghosts they claim are still hanging around. Too many stairs for me and I kid you not when I went down the stairs going to the garage area my chest and face began to get a burning sensation, I continued down and as I turned toward the door leading outside I had a sharp pain in my forehead area so rather than go out that door I turned to another door leading back into the house to join everyone else and began to feel normal again, later on Martha said she got the same sensation I described when she went down the same stairs, she said this before I mentioned what I had experienced, Cindy said she started down the stairs but felt uneasy and like her chest was beginning to burn so she turned back, later on we were told that the first owner of this house was mortally wounded inside and had escaped down the stairs and out the door to collapse and die in the yard. Now our plans to visit a murder house was not in the equation but it was an experience that left you kind of excited and uneasy at the same time, I had to decline the lowered price on the house and after discussing everything we had experienced the realtors said they would not be hanging around for too long, because their plans of staying until dark had just changed.

Our plans of going to the Elephant Bar and Grill was changed to Marie Callender’s since the timeline on the evening plans had now been disturbed with our sidetracked “Open House” viewing, we could get into Marie Callender’s and out in a reasonable amount of time and still get to the movie with plenty of time to spare since this restaurant was much closer. My plans for Chicken and Shrimp Jambalaya was replaced with a Cajun spiced fish dinner so I can’t complain too much here, the only thing that was a problem was the service, not that it was bad it was just slow, we had excellent meals and plenty of time to visit, I am talking two hours later before we got out of there, so needless to say the 7pm movie we were going to see was not happening, our plans were again changing.

Miniature Golf was the suggestion from Cindy, we have had a long standing joke with Bob about playing miniature golf, he once made the mistake of stating that he did not like playing at night because of the gangs being out, that statement got him laughed at because now I have pictures in my head of miniature golf playing heathens running around with their clubs and colored balls tagging their scores on unsuspecting buildings all over the area, but to our surprise Bob said miniature golf sounded good and we were off to the miniature golf course to face the colored ball gangs.

On our way to our now planned golfing experience Martha decided that it was not really a good idea to play miniature golf in heels and Cindy was wanting to make a pit stop anyway so Bob reluctantly pulled into the mall area and the girls headed inside JC Penny’s so Martha could pick up a pair of sandals, a bit later they make their way back to the car where Bob and I were waiting with no sandals, they had none for sale Martha told us because they are out of season, Out of season for sandals I am thinking, Heck this is Southern California the land of shorts and sandals and they are out of season, so the plans to play in heels were an unwelcome decision that Martha had come to grips with, heck I knew she would be barefoot before long anyways and everything would be just fine.

Pulling up to the facility there was a large group of kids hanging around, actually dressed in formal wear, now this was not the gang I was expecting to see, it appeared that a local High School was having a Homecoming Gathering/Dance here, we decided to go ahead with our plans in spite of the large group of kids and we were immediately labeled the “Old People” while waiting in line for our clubs, we had gathered three clubs and were only waiting for one more when a young lady said that her group was just finishing up and we could have their clubs, I thought this was nice and she turned to yell at her class mates “Hurry up and finish, someone needs your club” the rely was “Who needs it?” and this is when we were labeled because she yelled “Some Old People”, I told her she should use her inside voice when talking about folks like this, she looked and smiled bringing us the club we needed.

It’s been quite a while since we played miniature golf and the last time we played was with Bob and Martha, Martha was really serious about keeping score and gathered the needed writing utensil and pad to keep the record of our game, picture this Bob and Cindy were pretty much raised together so taking them out in public together is sometimes a challenge, they get along very well and they always are in the mode of giving each other a hard time or pulling some sort of prank on one another, so needless to say the score keeping went out the window as colored balls flew through the air, landed in the water hazards, bushes, trees, and of course the few I had ricochet right back to where they began, heck Bob even went into the water to retrieve a wild shot Cindy had and also came back with two green balls when he went looking for a ricochet of his own, this spare ball came in handy a few holes later when his ball actually disappeared into the brush. We had a young man of about sixteen years old named Kyle who was playing behind us and before we knew it he was joining in on our antics and really had a good time playing with the Old People.

This Date Night was anything but according to plan, there were Ghosts or maybe no Ghosts, there was no Jambalaya but a good meal regardless, no movie but a good game of golf with no score to settle, and the gang we were up against was actually a good group of kids who were very polite, dressed to the nines in their formal wear, and a whole lot of fun to be around. The best thing about the whole night was the blessing of being around family who are actually your best friends; this is something you just can’t plan.