The Proposal

My wife and I met through a mutual friend that I was currently teaching with. She was trying to get us both to meet by having us in the same spot and make it seem random. With how awkward that sounded to us, we decided after talking online a few times to just go on a first date. It was the first blind date I ever went on.  I remember feeling extremely nervous and was not sure how it was going to go. Fast forwarding and now almost 5 years of marriage, I would say the first date went well enough for us to get to this point!

The first time driving up to her house my heart was beating so fast and the little moths in my stomach were turning into butterflies flying frantically about. I remember contemplating as I pulled into her driveway, “I hope she likes the flowers. I hope what I am wearing is OK. I hope we have enough things to talk about for the night.” On our first date we went to dinner and then went mini golfing. I was trying to be a gentleman and let her win, which was very hard for me. I am a very competitive person and hate nothing more than to lose. Needless to say, as hard as I tried to throw mini golf, I still ended up winning. Lets just say she did not bring her "A game". The last hole was the only one she got a hole-in-one on and won a free round. So I guess it is up for debate who the real winner was that night! We ended up going on a few more dates and from that point on we were both hooked and falling in love.

It must have gone fairly well because we ended up dating for 2 years and I finally decided it was time to propose. I was in the middle of completing my grad school work and it just so happened to be a weekend I did not have a paper to write. It was a true spur of the moment thing. I remember waking up with the rational, “I really don’t have anything going on today. Maybe I should figure out a cool way, go shopping and possibly propose today.”

She works night shifts, as a nurse, so she was sleeping all day. I snuck her phone to get her dad’s number and called him while I was out running errands. I didn’t want to buy the ring until I asked her dad for permission because you never know what one might hear after they ask the question. While the phone was ringing many thoughts were going through my head, “What if he says were not ready, what if he doesn’t approve, what if he asks other questions I can’t answer.” The bad news is, he had no idea who I was at first. I had to explain to him that it was his daughter’s boyfriend calling. I began to ponder, “this is not off to good start and was getting more nervous how the rest of the conversation was going to go.” However, after explaining who I was, I managed to work up the courage and asked for his permission and thankfully he said yes! Phew, crisis averted!

With that part behind me I had a few stops to make, the mall and the jewelry store. After I picked out the perfect ring, I had to figure out how and when I was actually going to propose. My original Idea was to find glow in the dark stars and spell out WILL YOU MARRY ME? on the basement wall. After searching for an hour in the mall I could not find any glow in the dark stars. Walking through the mall feeling down I began to reflect, “maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe this is the world's way of showing me that this was not a good idea to do on the fly.”

Heading back to my car I ended up walking past Build A Bear. I decided I would build her a bear and record my voice. When I entered the store of course there was a child’s birthday party going on. I began to consider how this must look, “I need to hurry up and get the heck out of here. I must look like a creeper standing in line with a bunch of 10 year olds getting their bears stuffed, as the worker is telling them to hug the bear, kiss the bear and rub the heart before putting them in the bear.” Then, I grabbed a recorder and hid in the corner to record my proposal. As I was huddled in the corner thinking, “Hope parents don’t think anything is going on back here.” I could not get out of there fast enough before they called mall security on me!

I still had no idea when I was going to propose. When she woke up, she showered and started getting ready for work. I figured at that point I could make her dinner and then surprise her. That could work right? So I told her I would make dinner and that I had a surprise for her. Valentine’s Day was not that long ago and we did not celebrate, so maybe she’d think I was making up for that. When she was all finished getting ready, we sat down and had dinner. After we finished, I went downstairs, brought out the build the bear box. She gave me the “are you kidding me” look. Along with the “you got me a frickin build a bear”. She took it out said thanks and laid it on the table. At that point it was obviously not going as planned. “Is she going to push the bears paw or am I going to have to tell her!” It came down to me actually having to tell her to push the paw of the bear. When she finally did I thought, “THIS IS IT!” I  got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She cried, like I think every woman does, and of course said yes. She started calling her family and friends to let them know. It was probably poor planning on my part to propose a half hour before she had to go back to work, but off she went with a ring that was to big she had to put it on a necklace to wear for the night.  That was the beginning of our crazy love story, little did I know just how crazy it would become!

Lesson: When your going to propose, you should plan it out and think it through more than I did!