Valentine\'s day ..2009 style

My wife and I had planned to go to dinner and a movie today for Valentine's Day. We went to the Olive Garden for our meal at around 3:00 pm . Our thinking was that we would perhaps be able to avoid the huge dinner crowd. Even at 3:00 pm the place was jumping. We were told that we would have a 35 minute wait. That didn't seem too bad...a little longer than we had hoped but still not bad.  Seeing a table open up in the bar area, we took our pager and sat at the table and ordered drinks. Then we thought that we might just order our food there. We told the waitress this and she took our pager and brought our menus. It turned out that I couldn' t handle it.  Three people at the adjoining table lit up cigarettes and that was that. I immediately began to cough and we had to leave the area. The waitress understood and even got us our pager back... and our place in line. Shortly thereafter we were seated in the NON smoking area of the restaurant and dinner was good. The meal was great and the staff were wonderful but I was still a little shaky. I have a bit of a cold and post nasal drip and I guess that that and the cigarette exposure was too much. (Smoking sections in restaurants...no wonder the St.Louis area is this year's asthma capitol).  My wife insisted that we go home. She always can tell when I'm feeling rotten. Other than the smoke exposure, it's good that we went when we did. I heard them tell people that it would be a 2 hour wait to be seated as we left. It turned out OK though. I sat with her and we watched Pretty Woman at home. That was just as nice.  Things will be much better when I shake this cold. I'll take Julie to a movie then. (Another night out...I'm living large).  Happy Valentine's Day,Tom