We’re five days into this and I’m considering either eloping or sticking my head in the oven.

I think the next time I tell the story of how I proposed, I’m going to slit my wrists with a battle-axe.  I actually resent the happiest moment of my life. Is that wrong?

And as if hearing the story of the proposal isn't enough, people are presumptuous enough to want to know when and where we're getting married!  You know what??? SO DO I! 

Why do the people that are going to be eternally designated to the B-list for wedding invitations seem to be the ones who are most curious as to when it will take place and where?  They seem to care more than I do.

The average call goes something like this:

Them: "HEY MAN! CONGRATS!"

Me: "Thank you."

Them: "I (and a date!) deserve to have 16 drinks on your future-wife’s parents’ and sneak into every picture because of this anecdote about the two of us from 8 years ago...that I’m about to tell you...that wasn’t so much meaningful as it was tedious. … … … Man we couldn’t be happier for you.  Is there anything we can do?"

Of course I’m paraphrasing.  But what if we did ask them to do something? 

"You know--now that you mention it--we're moving this weekend and I could really use a hand."
"Actually, you could do something.  Would you mind learning the entire Swedish language? We have some cousins coming in for the wedding and want them to feel comfortable."
"Yes, there is something you can do.  Could you come by once an hour for the rest of my life and tell me what time it is? I really don't like using clocks."
"That's so nice of you.  Would you mind handing out programs and building a floating church for us to get married in?"
"Oh yeah, that would be great. Could you write 2,000 words on how Google Plus works?" 

I woke up this morning with a fiancee.  It’s kind of like waking up with a sore throat where it is on your mind the entire night, but you’re not really sure if it is true until you get out of bed.
 

(Though--I don’t think I could get that ring away from her with a shotgun, much less by gargling salt-water.)

Here are the highlights:

9:58 AM

We arrive at a friend’s place, as he’s moving to San Francisco and wants to rent out his condo.  Nice place and Melissa likes it. That’s good...we can check that off the to-do list.

(Why am I mentioning this? You’ll see.)

1:11 PM

The marine layer hasn’t lifted and we’ve pretty well decided that we’re going to waste a summer day indoors, watching TNT movies.  Note to guys: Don’t watch "Definitely, Maybe" on the day you’re going to propose. (Who am I kidding? It isn’t appropriate on the day your going to shoot up a Kinkos either...but a movie where a guy gets rejected on two proposals is bad for your mojo.)

3:42 PM

The weather has broken a bit. We have a 6 PM reservation (because we’re 147 years old!) so she decides that we should go for a walk...

3:53 PM

Have I mentioned how well Melissa and I get along? It’s really amazing. I was thinking about it two days previous thinking, "With the exception of when she had oral surgery and couldn’t eat for four days, we’ve never once had a disagreement where she cried." Normally it is 2-3 dates before I make a girl cry. Here we are, a year to the day and not a tear.

Or so I thought.

She laid one of the most divinely serendipitous guilt-trips in the history of relationships on me.  Gave me the "I-just-signed-another-12-month-lease. I’m-not-saying-we-have-to-get-married-right-away...I’m-not-even-saying-we-have-to-move-in-right-away...but-you-didn’t-even-make-mention-of-it. I-need-you-to-start-thinking-about-that...because-if-this-lease-ends-and-we’re-still-not-on-that-track, that’s-probably-the-end-of-the-track."

JACKPOT!

You’ve heard of the term "milking"? I squeezed every drop out of this metaphorical udder.

A few of my favorite quotes:

"I’m getting there...I mean--that’s where I want to be--I’m just not there yet."

"I don’t want to be pressured."

and the cous de gras:

"What if we got a storage unit together?"

4:58 PM

Walk ends and I shower up for dinner.  I put on a pair of cargo shorts because I figure that that is the only way to get the ring around without her noticing.

"What are you going to sneak out with some dinner rolls? Change."

I almost retorted before realizing that she doesn’t know that I have a platinum, circular, get-out-of-anything-bad-I’ve-ever-done in my pocket.

So I change.

And bring a coat.

(The coat has a ring in it.)

(An engagement ring.)

(The engagement ring I’m going to propose with.)

7:10 PM

We’ve finished an unsurprisingly fantastic dinner at the absolutely delicious yet horrendously overpriced restaurant of my choosing and are milling post-dinner options.  I suggest, "What if we went down to the bench where we had our first kiss and watch the sunset?" to which she responds, "It’s 7:10. We’d just be watching the sun. Unless you want to sit there for two hours! AND THAT’S NOT HAPPENING!"  

Awesome.

Meanwhile, I’d brought Melissa’s favorite wine to dinner and paid the corkage fee, but there was about a glass left. We were both half-full, so when the waitress inquired whether or not we’d be having dessert, the following exchange occurs:

Me: "No, I actually baked" (key lime pie--Melissa’s favorite) "so we’ll be eating dessert at home. If you just want to finish off that wine we’ll just take the check" as I motion to our two half-full glasses.

Waitress: "Well thank you, Rose is one of my favorites."  About three beats... "Oh...you didn’t mean for me, did you?"

I’m quite certain you had to be there to realize precisely how out of line she was...but as you’ll read, it’s likely the only charming moment of our engagement (or our entire wedding-planning-process) so I’m including it.

7:38 PM

Having arrived at the bench where we first kissed, which is a lovely, lakeside bench that looks out over Lake Washington and the Seattle skyline, I realize that it is Seafair (Seattle’s fleet-week) and there are roughly 20,000 drunk boaters trying to get their parents’ boats onto a trailer within 30’ of the spot I’d decided to propose.  Now I’m not one for sentiment, but the idea of my proposal being drowned out by a guy yelling, "Timbo! You get those empties out of the boat? My dad’s gonna be pissed!" just doesn’t strike me as a moment to remember.

7:49 PM

Thinking quickly, I realize that about 100 yards away, there is a quiet, secluded hill in a park with a similar view...we’re headed that way.

7:51 PM

Apparently an ugly family knows of the hill. And has invited all of their relatives for a picnic.

8:07 PM

We drove about two miles north to a less-populated park along the lake that we go to frequently on summer days to watch first-time mothers’ breasts fall out of their hopelessly small bathing suits and listen to pre-diabetic children scream at their 2nd-generation, illegitimate hispanic fathers for not buying them a snowcone. (They are in fact legitimately hispanic. Their birth has not been legitimized via marriage. Try to keep up.)

Truth be told, it is a great viewpoint for a sunset. And voila! There are 5 open benches.

Exhale.

I’m going to pee...we’ll reconvene shortly.

8:12 PM

It was a long pee. Sue me.

8:13 PM

I walk out of the restroom expecting to see Melissa outside the door or seated on one of the five wide-open benches on the shoreline.

But she’s not there.

She’s on the dock.

That’s a problem.

Why?

Well if a dock were over land, it would be called a "porch", and I’d be fine with it.  But unfortunately, they’re over water, and shaky-handed balding men after 3 glasses of pink girl wine are known for dropping expensive rings into water.

8:32 PM

She thinks I’m insane, but I’ve lured her to the shore.  She probably thinks that I really like the jacket I’m carrying at my side with the stranglehold of a boa constrictor.

8:49 PM

Having waited for a very loud, very fat 14-year-old girl to finish chasing around the kids that hangout with her now (but will avoid her like the Ebola Virus when they start high school in a month) to clear out, everything kind of went blank.

I wasn’t nervous.

I didn’t tremble.

I just dropped to a knee and said...

Well neither of us has any idea what I said.  (And I’m not holding out, I genuinely don’t remember. I think it was something about "like a dinosaur to a tar pit, I’m drawn to you"...but about a ten minute period is completely blank.)

Though she did cry. And laugh. And there was a snort or two...which I’m totally into.

Four days ago, I successfully waited for and then completed what I (at the time) considered the most-stressful portion of the engagement process:

I plucked all of my nosehair.

And then I asked her parents for permission.

I can’t say that it went as designed.

I picked that particular day because Melissa works on Sundays and it was one of the rare weekends that the sister (who lives in Los Angeles) was in town.  Seeing as how I go home to my parents’ house (which is about ¼ mile of private road away from her parents’) every Sunday, I figured that I could quite easily "just swing by" and smoothly ask her entire family for their permission.

Turns out they made plans without my permission.

Finding out that I had about a 20-minute window where they were a) dressed and b) still home, I rushed over there.  

No stress to this point.

But about half way through this 80-second drive, I got a feeling in my stomach that felt like a cross between nerves and instantaneous diarrhea.

Hobbling to their front door, I pulled the sister outside and showed her the ring.  I think I accidentally proposed to her. But she's alright.  So it isn't a complete loss...

So she leads me into the house. 
They walk around the corner, and I'm trembling like a gummy bear on a paint-shaker and just blurt out "I’m here to ask your permission to marry Melissa!"


This is the first step of what I hope will be the story of our wedding. I say "hope" because there's always an outside shot that he says no. 
Didn't see that one coming, did you?  That's right, Melissa is a dude.  A big, 6'4", 260 pound dude. He looks like the guy in the Brawny ads.

That's a lie. Melissa is 6'2", tops.

　

So I've got permission, but now I've got to propose.  And once again, a well-intentioned, well-thought-out plan goes tragically awry...

I told her parents the same thing I told my own: that my plan was to propose about six weeks from that day, on a trip that I gave her for her birthday.  But after the pure trepidation I felt while asking permission, I’ve realized that going two days into a vacation with a ring in my bag is going to make the stress of the moment seem relatively minuscule.  

In an email exchange with her sister, I started brainstorming ideas only to realize that the only Friday or Saturday evening that we have available between now and October is Saturday night.  

That’s two days from now.

So here I sit, in an airport in Boston, having slept about 12 hours in three nights that stretched Seattle-New York-Boston and now I’m waiting to go back to Seattle and I’m realizing that my nerves have created only one certainty about my upcoming flight:

I am going to vomit a vomit so violent that Jesus will refuse to hold my hair as I do so.

God help us...