​If you've watched your share of movies you probably already know the scene I'm talking about. What was supposed to be a romantic evening ends up being completely ruined when one of the two key participants fails to show up. Instead of sharing each other's company by candlelight, the person who spent most of the day toiling in the kitchen (and lovingly plating TWO dishes) is left sitting alone at the dinner table wondering where their spouse or significant other could possibly be.

It's not hard to imagine there are plenty of scenarios where a person might plan on making an ornate dinner only to have it spoiled at the last minute, however, in movie land, the circumstances always seem highly suspect. It's not so much the fact that plans go awry, but rather how they're handled that makes me throw my hands up in the air in an exasperated "do people actually do this?" type fashion.

Let's look at a few things that usually happen within this overused movie cliché:

Sometimes you can tell a great story in just a few words, and the site fmylife.com has some real doozies. This week's date night comes from a post that went up three weeks ago, and has had us laughing ever since we read it.

"Today, this guy took me to Denny's on a first date and used a 2 for 1 coupon. It was expired. I paid. FML"

Even though we're not sure Denny's is the best place for a first date, we always thought using a coupon was a great way to impress ladies by showcasing how fiscally responsible you are...as long as the coupon isn't expired.

Thanksgiving is a time when people in this country get together with friends and family to celebrate all the blessings they have in life. It's a time of minor festivity and major amounts of overindulgent eating that I can only assume is the reason behind the creation of New Year's resolutions. The point is, Thanksgiving is a supremely ultimate statement of the enduring right of all Americans to eat the things they want in quantities that would make the starving peoples of the world shake a fist in jealous rage; or at least they would cringe if their gross malnutrition would allow for the extra expenditure of energy such an action would demand.

So, it is with this knowledge that I endeavored to share our good favors and my own personal blessings with a stranger I had met whilst traveling to Vancouver, British Columbia. My business trip just happened to fall over our Thanksgiving holiday week. I was traveling alone, but undeterred, and having met an enjoyable companion the night before whilst having a drink at a local bar, I managed to make my Thanksgiving in Canada a table-for-two holiday of my own at The Keg.

This story was recounted to me by a friend a couple years ago, and I was so amused by her misfortune that I tucked the story away, waiting for an appropriate time to share it with as many people as possible. Because that's what good friends do.

Having been in a relationship for several months with a man she described as "a bit of a deadbeat," she discovered he had been cheating on her, and naturally, was ready to break things off. He pulled out all the stops, apologizing profusely, buying her flowers, and promising he was a changed man. And, to show her how serious he was about his new found commitment to the relationship, he offered to take her out for a fancy dinner.

Nothing says, "Sorry I cheated on you" like a dinner at Outback.

There is a phenomenon that occurs every so often, and much like Haley's Comet, when it rolls around you can't ignore it. I'm talking, of course, about the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl at the Olive Garden.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't love the Olive Garden, I'm not on a first-name basis with the waitstaff, and I don't want to have ten thousand of its little "authentic Italiano" babies. The Olive Garden is one of those restaurants that you classify as "not bad" but has become enough of a public punching bag that you're vaguely embarrassed whenever you eat there and are unwilling to tell your friends that you spent Friday night stuffing your face with the Tour of Italy. Unless, of course, your friends are in on the joke, which is precisely what was supposed to happen that fateful evening.