52 Great Cheap Dates
Author: Lynn Gordon; Susan Synarski
Date: 1996-06-01 07:00:00+00:00
Description: These playfully illustrated cards describe 52 dates that won't challenge your budget. After all, a great date really only requires: a little imagination, the right attitude, and a delightful playmate. They are perfect for afternoon adventures, serious seductions, and romantic rendezvous. **
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Rights: Copyright (c)1996 by Lynn Gordon/A Spark! production.

52 ® Great Cheap Dates

By Lynn Gordon

Illustrations by Susan Synarski

Table of Contents

Roman Decadence

Home Health Spa

Scare Each Other Silly

Dance of Seven Veils

Wash and Dry

The Convenience Store

Go Fish

The Cleavers

Into the Woods

It’s Paris!

Eve of Art

All Aboard!

Sunrise, Sunset

Tallest in Town

Shhh!

Midnight Snack

Picture Perfect Picnic

Pet the Animals

An Afternoon of Regression

Up, Up, and Away

Fred and Ginger

Volunteer, My Dear?

Video Date

Time Capsule

Celluloid Love

Bake a Cake

Beer Tasting

Clay Play

Run Away Together

Bench Brunch

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Indian Nights

All Americana

A Newspaper Page

The Intelligentsia

Face Paint

Sharks

Row, Row, Row Your Poetry

Photo Op

Old and Used

Tea for Two

Big Balls, Little Balls

Henry and June

Totally High School!

That’s Italian!

Window Shop

Get Nekkid!

Camp Out

The Zoo

Hairdo and Tattoo

On a Clear Day…

Games People Play

Other Books by

Copyright

Roman Decadence

An evening of Roman decadence begins with the costuming-that is, stripping the sheets off the bed and wrapping yourself and your guest in them (and nothing else). Dinner is served with pillows on the floor-the easier to recline-and eaten with one’s hands. Hand-peeled grapes are, of course, de rigueur for dessert. And the entertainment? Well, your choice of Spartacus or Ben Hur. It’s sure to be an epic evening.

Home Health Spa

Turn your bathroom and living room into a health spa with fresh towels and a homemade facial cleanser (cut a recipe out of a summer lifestyle magazine of your choice). Or try out those sample-size beauty products you’ve accumulated over time and haven’t had the heart to throw away. Be imaginative and make a menu of all the services your spa offers, from healthy edible snacks to scalp massages. Make special stationery, and send your date an appointment confirmation card.

Scare Each Other Silly

Make a date to meet just after dark and take a walk out to an open field or hilltop where you can lay a blanket down and stare up at the stars. After you’ve identified all the constellations, take turns telling the scariest stories you know, until you’re both so spooked and chilled that you need to flee to the nearest diner for hot slices of pie à la mode, of course. Don’t forget to bring a flashlight.

Dance of Seven Veils

Armed with take-out falafel, a how-to belly dance video tape, and your own makeshift belly dancing costume, cater a private Middle Eastern cultural festival for two at your place or his. Even better, make it a surprise and come to the door in your get-up with a veil over your face.

Wash and Dry

Make a date to meet at your favorite laundromat to do your laundry, but pretend to be strangers. Somewhere between the sorting and borrowing detergent, introduce yourselves. Perhaps between rinsing and spinning you could bravely begin to make small talk, and, by the time you are folding and leaving, see if you can’t make a date to get to know each other’s dirty laundry better.

The Convenience Store

Armed with $5 each to spend at your favorite convenience store, see what creative combination of things you can buy to make an unusual evening. Some suggestions are crayons and paper, strange hobby magazines to read together, frozen cookie dough, or, if you’re in the right kind of convenience store, temporary tattoos and nail polish.

Go Fish

With a borrowed fishing rod, some bait, and inside information on the best place to fish near you, make some fish stick sandwiches and head out for a morning, afternoon, or dusk date of fishing together. If you can’t quite master the Zen of waiting, head to your city’s aquarium on free night, or go to a tropical fish store to stare at the people who stare at tropical fish. Then head to the spot locals consider the best fish and chips place around.

The Cleavers

Dust off your American classics cookbook and find the meatloaf and mashed potatoes recipes. Plan your idyllic family-life-in-the-50s date by scheduling dinner around the evening news (to be finished or begun before it starts) and then letting your honey read the paper while you do the dishes. To top the evening off, surprise your date with some fabulous Jell-O dessert. Leftovers? Don’t forget the magic of Tupperware.

Into the Woods

With a borrowed fishing rod, some bait, and inside information on the best place to fish near you, make some fish stick sandwiches and head out for a morning, afternoon, or dusk date of fishing together. If you can’t quite master the Zen of waiting, head to your city’s aquarium on free night, or go to a tropical fish store to stare at the people who stare at tropical fish. Then head to the spot locals consider the best fish and chips place around.

It’s Paris!

Plan your Parisian picnic for a sunny afternoon on the banks of the Seine (or your local creek, whichever is closest) with bicycles, berets, baguettes, brie, Berlitz French tapes (or a French dictionary) and your bottle of vin or Perrier. When your last crust of baguette has been chewed, and you’ve learned the French words for everything around you, you may want to be a bit more risque and try to teach each other to French kiss. Mon dieu!

Eve of Art

Dressed in your favorite gallery-going garb, attend an opening (call your local galleries to find out about the next one) or meet at the museum of art on the night it stays open late. After partaking in such highbrow culture, work your way back down the cultural food chain by heading to your favorite ice cream parlor to split one of those sculptural ice cream creations you would never dare order alone.

All Aboard!

Meet at the train station with a picnic, a sweater, and a sense of adventure. Depending on your whim and the train schedule, decide on the spur of the moment where you will go. Dine on board or when you arrive at your destination. Be sure to regale each other with strange travel tales along the way.

Sunrise, Sunset

Pick the best location to watch the sun come up or go down and, after consulting a timetable for either of these daily occurrences, rendezvous at the appointed time and spot with coffee and doughnuts or a thermos of soup and bread. Then settle into your front row seats for the big event.

Tallest in Town

Do a little research to find the tallest building in town, then meet by the elevators after work and have a vertical adventure. This adventure is especially fun when the top floor has a view. If you are a fan of express elevators, you can conquer a few other buildings on the same date. And if vertigo hasn’t set in by this time, head to your corner cafe or bar to share whatever comes in the tallest glass they have. While imbibing, tell each other tall tales.

Shhh!

Put on tweeds and meet at the public library at an appointed time, library cards in hand. Decide on an esoteric topic or writer whose work has always fascinated you both. With the help of the reference librarian or the computer, carry out your literary scavenger hunt and then, treasures in hand (you can fight over who will carry whose books), walk to a nearby cafe for a caffeine fix while poring over your printed finds.

Midnight Snack

Meet at an all-night diner or some obscure truckstop just outside town for a midnight snack. Add to the surreality of the event by arriving dressed to the nines. If you prefer a less public setting, invite your date over for midnight milk and cookies but enforce your feety-pajama dress code, or no service.

Picture Perfect Picnic

Be an artist for a day, or just look like one. Pack a picnic, a pad of paper, watercolors, crayons, colored pencils, pastels, or whatever medium you’ve always wanted to try. Set off to a scenic afternoon spot where you can both sketch and fritter the time away with good conversation and lots of color. This is all the more fun if neither of you are artistic, or if both of you are. If they aren’t too heavy, you could both bring your favorite art books to pore over after you’ve finished your own masterpieces.

Pet the Animals

It’s probably been a while since you went to a petting zoo, so you may need to do a little research to find a junior museum or model farm near you. Another option is to go to a pet shop or spend some time “visiting” with an animal at the SPCA. And if you are still in the mood for more fun with critters, rent a good animal story video-there’s always Born Free.

An Afternoon of Regression

Make an afternoon of all the things you both loved to do or always wanted to do as children. Is there a carousel in town? Were you a budding finger-painting artist? Or were the simple things, like swinging and eating ice cream (be sure to get some on your face and hands) more your specialty?

Up, Up, and Away

Drive to the airport, park in short-term parking, and stroll through the international terminals. The range of nationalities found here is impressive. People-watch and make up stories about people’s lives and the trips they are taking. Enjoy the emotional drama of sad partings, joyful reunions, and all the misbehaving tired children. Scan the latest in trash reading at the airport gift store, have yourself a snack in one of the snack bars, and head home with the comfort of knowing that you won’t be sitting on an airplane for 11 hours.

Fred and Ginger

Make your Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers fantasy come true by taking a group ballroom dance class with the partner of your choice and dancing the night away. If your toes get stepped on just one too many times, relax with your feet up and watch Fred and Ginger’s classic film, Top Hat.

Volunteer, My Dear?

Although running off and joining the Peace Corps may not be practical at this time in your lives, there are other ways to spend time together while contributing to the welfare of others. Nonprofit organizations often put out a call for volunteers around major holidays, though you may want to avoid the rush and make a few calls yourself to see which cause could use a cooperative couple of volunteers.

Video Date

With a roll of quarters to blow and the attitude of social anthropologists, meet at a video arcade to observe the teen scene and to explore the latest and greatest in techno-entertainment. We’ve come a long way since penny arcades.

Time Capsule

During the course of a particularly delightful date, gather artifacts that are small but representative of how you have spent your evening together. Place them all in a tin can with a note and the date (for example, “A perfect evening with Mike and Mabel, July 18, 1995”) and drop it in the trash (landfills, remember, will be amazing archaeological digs in a few thousand years), or bury it somewhere. What would you like the people alive in 4001 to know about dating at the end of the twentieth century?

Celluloid Love

With your microwave popcorn waiting at home, meet at the video store and pick out movies that contain what you each consider to be the hottest or most devastatingly romantic scenes. Fast forward to all the best scenes and watch them back-to-back. Then, after what we can only hope turns into a much-heated debate, decide on the scene you both consider to be the best, and act it out. You may need to rewind a couple of times to get the, er, dialogue right.

Bake a Cake

Have yourselves a Betty Crocker date by poring through the best-sounding dessert recipes and choosing one that you might never tackle alone. Grocery shop for the ingredients, then make your outrageous creation from scratch as the evening’s entertainment. Be sure to have doilies and glasses of milk on hand.

Beer Tasting

Local microbreweries often offer free tours with beer tasting afterwards. If there’s no brewery near you, throw your own tasting party by buying some of those weird new beers whose taste you’ve been wondering about, and making homemade pretzels (simple recipes can be found with just a bit of research). Buy a couple of different mustards to put on the fresh pretzels and ta dah! You’ve got your own beer and mustard tasting party (though preferably not mixed together).

Clay Play

Buy a big block of clay from a hobby store and, while you’re there, check out some of the cool-looking sculpting tools. Back at home (aka the artist’s atelier), cover a table and the floor underneath with plastic drop cloths, and don old shirts in preparation for getting elbow-deep in clay. Try building a sculpture together, or taking turns being the model and the master sculptor.

Run Away Together

A spontaneous attitude and a shared escapist fantasy are what’s needed for this cheap date. Decide on a moment’s notice to pack your hobo’s rucksack with a day’s supplies and converge at the Greyhound bus station. Give yourself a $10 travel budget, and see how far and for how long you can run away.

Bench Brunch

Pick your favorite public bench and invite your honey to a bench brunch date complete with bagels, coffee, and the Sunday funnies. Be sure to give explicit directions to the bench where you are to rendezvous so your date won’t end up sitting somewhere alone.

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Both of you write down twenty personal questions on separate scraps of paper. Roll your questions up and drop them into separate bowls. Take turns pulling a question out of your date’s bowl and answering it. Each of you can exercise the right to not answer one question.

Indian Nights

Find an Indian cookbook in the library. Plan a field trip to an Indian grocery store (a date in itself) to stock up on supplies, then reserve a long evening in which you can prepare a leisurely meal together. Serve your feast in an improvised sari. When sated on your curried creations, curl up and read the Kama Sutra together.

All Americana

Time travel back to the ‘50s with an evening at a drive-in movie theater, a bowling alley, or a roller-skating rink. Nourish yourself with burgers, fries, and malts at a drive-in restaurant (if you can find one) or squeeze into a booth at a diner. What would your lives be like if you had really been teens in the ‘50s?

A Newspaper Page

Pick any page in the newspaper. Circle words in the stories or headlines that randomly catch your eye, and base your activities that evening on those words. For example, you might have circled “crowds,” “dogs,” “flying,” and “dairy products,” which clearly indicates a date to take the escalator up and down at the mall looking for friendly dogs and then sharing a milkshake.

The Intelligentsia

Join the intelligentsia around town at free book readings, poetry readings, and lectures often posted in bookstores or advertised in calendar sections of the newspaper. Feed your intellect and then feed yourselves at one of the many bookstore cafes that seem to be springing up.

Face Paint

Buy some face paint at a craft store and make each other up like mimes, clowns, or anything else you can imagine. Add to your character with clothing accessories, then partake in some mundane activity together, like doing your laundry, riding the bus, going grocery shopping, or just walking down the block to buy the paper.

Sharks

Meet at a pool hall and pretend you are rivals from different parts of town. Hustle each other through several rounds of pool. The winner gets to decide what the next activity will be.

Row, Row, Row Your Poetry

Rent a canoe or rowboat somewhere, bring along a book of poetry, and head to the middle of the lake. Once you’re out of earshot of other boaters, relax and read each other poems.

Photo Op

Make an afternoon of running errands, shopping, or just hanging out more fun by bringing along a disposable camera to snap spontaneous shots. What are the strangest places you can find to document on film in the course of a casual afternoon? You may want to develop a theme, like Saturday afternoon fire hydrants, and snap pictures of each other atop every hydrant you come across that day.

Old and Used

With a preset budget, cruise through as many thrift shops as you can in one afternoon, searching for not only that wonderful or wacky pair of pants you can’t live without, but also a rehab project you both can work on. Maybe it’s a bureau that needs stripping, or old magazines you want to turn into a collage. Also try flea markets and auctions listed in the paper.

Tea for Two

Rainy afternoons are perfect for Mad Hatter tea parties. Anything goes with tea, from elegant little cakes to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Invite your date over for a tea party that could either be a perfectly mannered British high tea (with scones, clotted cream, and affected British accents, of course) or your own eccentric version of the Mad Hatter’s tea party. The tea is a given, the style and execution are all your own.

Big Balls, Little Balls

Have yourself a middle-American afternoon dressed in garb appropriate for a miniature golf game, or head to a putting green and work out your whacks there. If you hate chasing those little white balls, head to the bowling alley (you do have your own shoes and bowling ball, yes?) for a cutthroat bowling tournament for two.

Henry and June

Buy a special notebook and pen with which to compose erotica together. For literary inspiration, you may want to read some of Anaïs Nin’s work aloud. Or perhaps you each have your own favorite auteurs. Compose together, or take turns writing paragraphs and then folding over what you’ve written except for the last sentence, which the other person then continues until the conclusion of the tale, at which time one of you reads the whole thing aloud.

Totally High School!

Relive your traumatic adolescence (remember, it’s only for one night) by re-creating a high school date. It could be your first date ever or a generic high-schoolish date. Do everything that’s available on a teen budget, from going to a PG-rated film to eating pizza or burgers and then heading to the mall, all the time wondering if the evening is going to end with a kiss.

That’s Italian!

Make a cozy homemade spaghetti or pizza dinner. To help set the mood, have Italian opera playing in the background (if you don’t own any, public libraries often have audio collections). Relax later with a movie directed by Fellini or starring Sophia Loren.

Window Shop

Just for the fun of it, dress up and venture down to all the chic stores in town for an afternoon of window shopping. After you’ve made the rounds at all the highbrow retail establishments, head to the five-and-dime for a snack and a shopping spree-separate for five minutes and buy each other a gift that costs no more than 99¢.

Get Nekkid!

Perhaps it’s been a while since you experienced the simple pleasure of running around unencumbered by restrictive swimwear (or maybe you do it all the time): For an uninhibited outting, go to a nude beach and enjoy a playful afternoon of unclothed romping on the sand. Skinny-dipping in a lake is another alternative. Sunburn’s not very comfy or romantic, so bring lots of sunscreen.

Camp Out

With the full intention of being outrageous and silly, head to your favorite thrift shop to buy bizarre outfits. Pop into a wig shop to try on a few, and don’t forget the cheap make-up section at the corner drugstore. Play dress-up until you are finally fully dressed for dinner. Now choose an appropriate place to dine, all decked out. There’s always take-out Chinese.

The Zoo

On a non-weekend day, if possible, explore the zoo. When was the last time you were there? Have you ever seen the lions being fed? Zoos sometimes offer special tours-the San Francisco Zoo, for example, has a Valentine’s Day tour that explains the mating patterns of different animals. Call and find out if there are any special events coming up at your zoo.

Hairdo and Tattoo

Have you really explored all the ways to wear your hair? After a quick trip to your local beauty supply store, do something unusual to your hair. Try some new color? A home perm? Some spiky gel? Play around with your options. Take turns playing hairstylist. And while you are out shopping, pick up a couple of those cool temporary tattoos. Between the hair and the tattoo, you’ll be a whole new person. Well, temporarily.

On a Clear Day…

Take a blanket, binoculars, and hors d’oeuvres to the top of a hill, mountain, building, or anyplace where you’ll have a panoramic view on a clear day. Meet at an appointed time and snap a picture of the view and you two. Make this spot a regular monthly or annual meeting spot-same place, same time, and document each reunion with a photo.

Games People Play

Armed with all of your favorite box or board games (those would be the ones you are unbeatable at), plan an afternoon or evening marathon of game playing. Place bets and play for phony money. The person who wins the best of 6 rounds of Monopoly, 5 rounds of Scrabble, and 14 rounds of Go Fish gets to pick what to do on your next date.

Other eTitles from the 52® Series

Look for these and other titles at your digital store:

52 Fun Things to Do in the Car

52 Fun Things to Do on the Plane

52 Cool Tricks for Kids

52 Rainy Day Activities

52 Amazing Science Experiments

52 Ways to Pamper Yourself

52 Tips for New Parents

52 Things to Try Once in Your Life

52 Great Cheap Dates

52 Relaxing Rituals

52 Ways to Stay in Love Forever

Copyright

52 Great Cheap Dates

Copyright ©1996 by Lynn Gordon/A Spark! production.

All rights reserved. No part of this deck may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

eISBN: 978-1-4521-0418-8

Chronicle Books LLC

680 Second Street

San Francisco, CA 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com