Adam Green: Perfect prep for date nights

Adam Green from The Hits.

This week my wife and I had the opportunity to pop out for a date night.

Relationship experts talk about the need to take time away from the kids to focus on your marriage and remember how you got into the predicament of having multiple noise-making, always hungry, mess machines living 90 per cent of their lives within a metre of your feet.

Sure, they don't put it exactly like that, but in a roundabout and much nicer way that's what they say.

What they DON'T say is "It might potentially be a great idea to rehearse some conversation starters that don't include aforementioned mess makers".

So with that in mind I thought that this week I could prepare you for your next date night with some topics of conversation that will be a hit next time you try to take two hours to wind the clock back to pre-child dinner dates and the days of endless conversation.

Starter one: Did you know that Disneyland, a theme park built around the world's most famous mouse, has a group of cats in the park that are well looked after, and in return spend their days keeping the mouse populations of the theme park down? True story. Bet Mickey didn't see that one coming!

Starter two: Will the Warriors be average or terrible next season? Perhaps more geared toward the sporting couple, but worth a go in a moment's silence.

Starter three: Bubble gum does NOT take seven years to digest. Actually it doesn't digest very well at all, but moves on out at around the speed of everything else we eat. Risky starter as you want to avoid any in-depth discussion as to the end result, but safe if you stick around the facts.

Starter four: Before settling on the Seven Dwarfs we know today, Disney considered Chesty, Tubby, Burpy, Deafy, Hickey, Wheezy, and Awful. Which mostly sound like names my wife has given me at some stage, so potentially sets you up to be the butt of a joke here, fellas.

Starter five: What are the kids going to wear . . . Dammit. Once a parent, always a parent.

But, if you go into your next dinner date well prepared you can be sure to find a few moments of blissful ignorance and a couple of minutes to forget you're heading home to the noise and mess, and you wouldn't want it any other way!

* Don't miss Adam Green and Sarah Van Der Kley on The Hits Hawke's Bay from 6am to 9am Monday to Friday.