About That Time I Accidentally Ordered a $175 Steak on a Date

"OH MY GOD!" I screamed.

"Oui, Madam?" asked the maître d'.

"Nothing!" I cried. "I’m totally fine!"

I rushed back to the table in a full sweat. "OH MY GOD, MARK!" I screamed.

"I JUST SAW THE MENU IN THE LOBBY. IT HAD PRICES. MY MENU HAD NO PRICES. I DIDN’T KNOW HOW MUCH THE STEAK COST. I DIDN’T KNOW, I SWEAR! I’M MORTIFIED! DO YOU FEEL TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF? DO YOU? I AM MORTIFIED!"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "That’s a thing in old-school, fancy French restaurants: They presume the man’s paying, so they don’t put any prices on the woman’s menu."

As though possessed, I sat there rocking and repeating, "Ahundredandseventyfivedollars. Ahundredandseventyfivedollars."

"It’s OK," said Mark. "Really. Did you enjoy it?"

"Ahundredandseventyfivedollars," I answered. "Onehundred. Andseventyfive."

Mark and I would spend the next few months trying our hand at a long distance relationship before realizing that, whatever chemistry there was, it wasn’t enough to bridge 4,000 miles. Nonetheless, things ended amicably.

In his final, romantically tinged email, Mark wrote, "We’ll always have your onehundredandseventyfivedollar freak-out. Which was amusing enough to be well worth the price-tag. All my best, Mark."

“Sara Barron is the author of People Are Unappealing and the forthcoming Eating While Peeing: and other adventures.“

—Sara Barron, How About We

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