The $1000 Weekend

My wife and I celebrated our 10th anniversary by escaping to New York for the weekend, where it all started. My mom took the kids and we walked to the train station in the freezing cold and snow with a weekend duffle on wheels. Now we are not rich and we are not poor. We had given this big weekend a lot of thought, and had considered a 3-day cruise, but my mom is in her mid sixties with her health declining. My kids are three and seven, two crazy boys, and I figured in case Mom couldn’t handle it, we better not get too far away; so a weekend in New York it was. We stayed two nights in a four star hotel, ate dinner in a fancy French restaurant the first night, a moderately priced Thai restaurant the second night, ate brunch in a diner Saturday AM, had hamburgers in the hotel lobby Sunday, watched Saturday Night Live, slept in, took a walk in Central Park and that’s about it.

Being a man, I figured we could relive the good old days, our twenties, and have sex say six times over the weekend. My bride was figuring she could sleep 24 of the 48 hours of our escape. A successful marriage requires compromise, and a successful comprise is known when both parties feel like they got screwed. Well I got screwed twice and she slept about 20 hours. Not too bad measured against our goals.

My mom had a low grade cold, but she didn’t want to ruin the weekend for us so she just sucked it up, but gave us Jewish Grandmother guilt upon our return. The three year old likes Grandma and couldn’t have cared less about our departure or return. The seven year old gave us departure guilt, but put on a tie to welcome us home!

So here’s the financial breakdown of our escapades:

2 Nights in a Hotel $472.53
Dinner at a Fancy French restaurant $172.73
Brunch in a Diner $23.30
2 Discounted Tickets to a Broadway Show $151.50
Dinner at a Thai Restaurant $60.20
2 Hamburgers in the Hotel Lobby $17.00
2 Roundtrip Train Tickets to Penn Station $27.50
Subway/Cab/Coffee/Sundries/Tips $34.45
Total $959.21

48 hours away from the kids with my wife: Priceless!