Allen and Susan were having their first date night out in what seemed like forever. Between their kids’ recitals, practices, and games there didn’t seem to be time for just the two of them anymore.
Allen had arranged for his mother-in-law to watch after the kids for this special treat for his wife Susan. He had been planning for weeks and had managed to purchase tickets to a performance of Tchaikovsky’s final Symphony, his wife’s favorite classical composer.
The evening was going great! Dinner was nice and the orchestra performance had been wonderful so far. The musicians were just coming off of a crescendo, their instruments growing silent when a loud noise rang out from Allen’s pocket.
The Vader theme from Star Wars resounded from his phone in the silence left by the now quiet instruments. He had thought it was funny to use that tone for his in-laws when he set it up. Here and now he did not find it so funny. He fumbled quickly for the phone in his pocket, trying to silence the offending device, very conscious of the glares from nearby patrons. No glare more penetrating than that of his now mortified wife.
He managed to silence his phone, dumbfounded how he had forgotten to turn it off in the first place. Worried that the call may have been about one of the children, he excused himself sheepishly and made his way to the lobby to call his mother-in-law back.
“Oh Hi, Allen”, came the voice at the other end of the line. “Is Susan enjoying her night out with you?”
“Uh, well she was…”, he paused a moment, “So I am just calling you back, is everything ok with the kids?”
“Calling me back? I didn’t call you…”, a few moments of silence and then, “Oh, it does show in my call history, must have dialed by accident. I’m sorry. The kids are just fine!”
Allen gritted his teeth slightly, glad everything was fine with the kids but annoyed at the embarrassing ringing of his phone over nothing.
“That’s good. Listen, I need to get back to Susan. We should be home on time.”, Allen said and then hung up the phone.
Returning back inside to his wife, he assured her the kids were fine to which he received a cold shoulder. He wasn’t going to forget this night. No, his wife was not going to allow that. For years he would hear about the night his wife almost enjoyed the symphony.
[The End]
Thanks to Word of the Day Challenge for the prompt.
And special thanks to TravelCoffeeBook for the image!
© 2018 – James Sponseller – mindescapes.net
(Originally posted to my other blog, SharedHere)
mindescapes.net - Art Works by Jim Sponseller 
I thought I had read this before.
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Yeah, I had been wanting to do more creative writing and at the time was holding mindescapes to a fairly restrictive scenes/poetry. But keeping it at arms length without being very personal hasn’t really helped the blog any so decided just to better tag posts so people can choose to read them or not but the blog will be more active if I have just one. Honestly, I’ve felt like I’ve been flailing around still trying to find my center when it comes to blogging. I enjoy some of your stories and like how you’ve used past characters for new stories. Thanks for reading!
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You’re welcome, and thank you for saying that. 🙂 Funnily enough I was thinking of setting up a different blog one for stories and the other for poems but you’re the second person I have come across who has amalgamated their blogs into one. I suppose it is best to keep it simple. 🙂
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Well, I wouldn’t say I know what is best. I figure if I tag the posts in the title, people who want poems will read poems and people who want stories will read those. Both groups will see that I am active and likely occasionally read posts outside their groups. Some people will read both and it is easier for them and me if they are in one place. At least, that’s my reasoning. I could be completely wrong and will just aggrovate both groups. Time will tell I suppose.
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That sounds very logical to me. 🙂
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