I had dinner with five strangers tonight.

I was supposed to meet a friend I used to work with for “girls’ night out.” Arriving about 15 minutes late, I was surprised not to see her in the restaurant. I did notice a table full of women watching me search the place. When I made my second round, they asked if I was looking for Christina. I got to meet her friends from her current job and was quietly pleased that I had been more punctual than her for once. That pleasure would soon turn to guilt when I found out she was home with strep throat (and a sick two-year-old, and sick twin babies.)

Luckily for me, Christina’s buddies were delightful. They shared baby and mommy stories and patiently listened to mine. They shared a lot of gossip over network TV shows. They apparently have TiVo but not HBO (“the OC” is nothing to “Rome,” baby). In comparing some new shows to old ones, Christi, the baby at the table, let slip that people her age didn’t watch Seinfeld (“we were busy ‘going out’ in college, not watching TV”). We gave her a hard time all night. People like to say that women secretly (or sometimes not-so-secretly) hate each other; I felt so at ease with these women, I would never believe that to be true—not that the Japanese beer and rum cake didn’t help…

At home, my husband practiced the “I’ve-been-alone-with-the-kids-all-night-so-you-owe-me” mating ritual:
(it goes like this…)

“How was dinner with the girls… did you have anything to drink?”