A Modest Proposal

So, you've probably read about (how I met my wife), but did you hear about how I proposed? It's actually our anniverssary this week, so I've been thinking back to that day long ago. Let's rewind a few years, and I'll tell you the tale. . .

It's November, and it's buttfucking cold. No, not kind of cold, not really cold, it's geniune, wholesale, buttfucking cold because we're in Minnesota in the winter time, and they've been 'having a bit of a cold front moving in'. Editorial note: This means that it might climb into single digits for the high today, but with the wind-chill it will really be about -40.

News anchor: 'It's gonna be a little chilly today, for shooore!'
Co-anchor: 'Oooh yah, for shooore. Better button up those little ones, yah!'
News anchor: 'That's right, we're looking at an intra-day high of seven today, but the wind-chill means that any bare skin will die within a few minutes of exposure!'
Co-anchor: 'Yah, yah, scarves and hats at the bus stop this morning kids!'
News Anchor (nodding): 'Ooh, yah, that's a good idea Margey'
Co-anchor (nodding): 'Ooh yah.'
News Anchor (nodding back): 'Yah.'

Why are we in Minnesota you ask? Why is anyone in Minnesota you ask? That's a very good question, and the latter had something to do with even the Native Americans not wanting it, and the former to do with, as my father put it, 'chasing that skirt cross-country'. Apparently, if you're from northern Scandanavia, then Minnesota is pretty good living, so the Scandanavians decided to move in, and no one felt the need to stop them. Okay, I might be over-simplifying American immigration a tad, but in a nutshell that's what happened. So yah, you best button up those little ones, yah.

So the wife-to-be had been hinting that she was interested in tying the knot, so to speak. Our coffee table had begun to be taken over with magazines from Ben Bridge, Zales, The Shane Company, and other diamond hawkers who seem to hold some mystical power over the psyche of a woman which convinces them that something that a criminal dug out of the mud is somehow worth two months of your salary. * cough * whataloadofshit * cough * Sooooo, we're sitting there having dinner one night and the subject inevitably comes up:

She (dropping the hint): 'You know, I was talking with [someone] today, and she said that they have really great merchandise at The Shane Company, I think we should go...'
Me (looking up with a mouthful of Ramen, unaware): 'Hmph?'
She: 'Yes, it looks like they are open until 8, well it's settled then.'
Me (thankful that whatever it is is settled): 'Mowkay.'

So, half an hour later I am driving around in the snow, trying to find The Shane Company. 'Don't worry, I'll leave my purse in the car', she says. Now somehow we managed to buy her (our) first cat, who is still living with us by the way, while her purse was still in the car, but I don't remember this until much later - which is a pity because it would have made for great foreshadowing. We find The Shane Company. I park. We walk in, and are greeted with a dazzling display of diamonds adorning any kind of jewelry that you would ever want to wear.

Sales girl: 'Can I help you?'
The wife (giving the sales girl a certain, secret look): 'Oh... We're just looking...'
Sales girl (knowingly): 'Come right this way.'

Now, inside my mind I start to wonder, and I begin to piece together what has happened and what is about to happen, but much too slowly to be of any use or to head-off what is, at this point, absolutely certain to happen.

Future wife: (turning around, eyes beaming): 'Don't you looove it??'
Sales girl: 'That's a quality diamond right there Hammy. Hey, have you heard about the four C's?'
Future wife (fighting back a little dance of joy, and holding the ring up high, admiring it from every angle): 'Tell us about the four C's Carol!!'
Me (in my head): 'Carol, who's Ca --- Oh.'
Carol: 'Well, I'm glad you asked, the four C's are Color, Clarity, Blah, and blah blah blah blah.'

Carol blah blah blah'd for about an hour and a half, after which I found myself sitting in the car with a happy wife and no money spent. Awesome. We went home, and all seemed well. Then the next day we were sitting around after dinner, and she was all of a sudden unhappy. I can tell because she always makes these little over-obvious sighs which are designed to get me to look up from whatever I am doing and ask 'What's wrong honey?', at which point she will usually say something that is long, agonizing, and can't be solved by a man. It's usually something like she has this friend, and this friend said something insensitive to her other friend. So now her other friend isn't talking to the first friend, but the first friend doesn't know, and there's this party next week, and she couldn't possibly invite them both, and blah and blah and omg, I need another beer. Viva la penis, that's all I gotta say.

Anyway, she sighs, and sighs again, and then a third time, so I know I have to bite:

Me (perfectly disguised dread): 'Is something wrong honey?' *cringe *
Her: 'I just, I just hope no one else gets that ring, I love it soooo much.'
Me (in my head): 'Ring? What ring?'
Me (dismissive): 'Oh, I'm sure it will all be okay honey...'
Her: 'I didn't see anything else I liked, and they only had one.'
Me (dawning): 'Yeah, ummm, it sure was pretty.'
Me (in my head): 'Who the f--- was that sales girl again?'
Her (distraught): ...

So needless to say, I go back to The Shane Company the next day, find Kristi or Carlie or whatever the hell her name is, and say 'Hi, what was that one ring again?'. And she knows, and do you know what? I knew that she would know, because of that secret-look thing that went on earlier in the week. I had half-fancied that her and my future wife would hook up in some torrid affair before my bedroom eyes, but now I understood exactly what that secret look meant. It meant: 'Help me part my man from his money'. And thus she did, swiftly and efficiently, and for my $$$$$ (ouch) I got to leave with a teeny little piece of metal and rock, smaller than a quarter, dressed up nicely in a little felt box. Hoo-freaking-ray.

The days went by, and my wife seemed to grow more distant, more despondant, and more irritable by the day. I decided that, if I was going to propose to her before she garnished my dinner with rat poison, that I would have to do it rather quickly. So I picked a night in late November, and as we sat watching television I brought it up. Now, I had heard of spectacular proposals before. Proposals where people went up together in hot air balloons and when flying over a particular ridge at just the break of day the guy had his idiot friends light a bunch of hay bales on fire in the middle of a field that spelled out 'WILL YOU MARRY ME?' The guy was thrown in jail, his friends fined $1000 each, but she did say yes, and I bet the memory is worth more to them than any misdemeanors on his record. Some people had proposed at a baseball game on TV, some people at a nice dinner out with an acapella song, some people didn't have the guts for these kinds of proposals, but they nonetheless found a way to make that night special for their bride-to-be.

So I start scheming. Maybe I could get her to take a hot air balloon ride. Maybe I could sing at a piano bar. Maybe we could just go for a nice walk, and at the right moment I could pop the question. I try to be subtle. Don't want to tip my hand...

Me: 'So, uhh, what do you feel like doing tonight?'
Her (laying on the couch, mad): 'I'm doing it.'
TV Guy: 'Looks like we're in for more chills tonight, with lows reaching the minus teens...'
Me: 'How about we go for a walk and look at Christmas lights?'
Her: 'No.'
TV Girl: 'That's right yah. Time to plug in those cars, yah, for shooore.' <--Editorial note: They don't mean electric cars. In some parts of Minnesota it gets so cold that on a chilly morning, if you go outside to start your car then the sudden temperature change in the engine block will actually crack the steel. Plugging in your car keeps the engine block warm. How fucked up is this?
Me: 'Errkay, umm. Hey, we could go out for a nice dinner instead of cooking tonight.'
Her: 'I already thawed hamburger.'
TV Guy (nodding): 'Ooh, yah, that's a good idea there Margey.'
Me: 'Well, is there anything you would like to do other than -'
Her: 'I want to go to K-Mart and get a new litter box.'
TV Girl (nodding back): 'Ooh yah.'
Me (trying to work this out somehow): 'Errkay. . . '

So we go to Kmart, and before walking in we are greeted by a bell-ringer (Salvation Army), and my wife sticks out her hand (as is custom) for my spare change to put in the pot. Actually, what she says is 'Give me something shiney to put in the pot', well, usually, but not this time on account of her mood - which is a pity because that would have been a good time to present the ring. I dig around and hand her what I have. I still have one more chance when we come out of the store though - as she likes to get me both coming and going. She throws my money in the pot and stalks off into the store, very much on a mission for that new cat box. I can't blame her really, the old cat box does smell like ass, and it's not like I'm going to wash it out either. It's a good thing I didn't give her the ring right then, actually, because I would have had to spend the next twenty minutes with a store-bought screw-driver prying open the pot over the objections of the Salvation Army guy.

I check my pocket, for like the fourth time, because inside is an envelope (left the box at home to be more stealthy) with her ring in it. A ring that I paid more for than anything else in my life to that date, and if it falls out of my pocket then I may as well hang myself because I'll be out the money and no other ring will ever do. Losing the ring would be grounds for saying 'screw it', and joining a traveling carnival, really. So I check it again, and it's there, thank God.

She picks out a beauty of a new cat box, and we go to the register. I fidget more. She looks back at me kind of annoyed (I later learn that she thinks I am shoplifting gum or something, as I am nervously feeling around in my pockets and trying to open the envelope with one hand, unbeknownst to her). And we start to walk out. The bare ring is in hand now, and I am walking right behind her. And she doesn't stop at the bell ringer for some reason. She usually can't pass up a bell ringer with a little pot, so this is unusual for her. She didn't stop at the bloody bell ringer, now what the hell am I supposed to do? My big plan is ruined!

In a panic I chase her into the parking lot a few steps and call out to her 'Hey, I've got something shiney for the pot!' And she turns around really kind of pissed off that I am delaying our departure, because as I said before, it's buttfucking cold out. 'Fine.' she says, and starts to grab for my hand as I get down on one knee, in the parking lot of the K-Mart with the ever-present ice crystals floating in the air, illuminated by the headlights of on-coming K-Mart shoppers - who pause just briefly to witness this event. '[Name of future wife], Will you marry me?' I ask. And my hands are shaking from the cold, as my gloves are off and my arms are stretched into the air. And the knee of my jeans is stuck to the ice on the asphalt of the parking lot on account of the cold, and she looks at me and smiles for the first time in days, and says 'Yes'. Thank God.

We left the cat box in the middle of the parking lot by accident, but we went back for it. A cat box is, after all, a cat box. Then went back home and finished the news, only it was a happier news this time:

TV Girl: 'Ooh, looks like it's going to warm up a bit next week.'
TV Guy: 'Yah Margey, into the teens it looks like, yah.'
TV Girl: 'Are we going to be looking at some thunder-snow then there?'
TV Guy: 'Ooh yeah, could be thunder-snow, for shooore, yah.'
TV Girl (nodding): 'Best stay in side then, yah.'
TV Guy (nodding back): 'Ooh, yah.'
Me: 'What the hell is thunder-snow?'
Future-wife (content): 'It doesn't matter.'

In Retrospect

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/07/thong.bandits.ap/index.html

Now, having lived in what basically amounted to an immigrant housing project for the last couple years of college, I, at the risk of stereotyping, have found Hispanic people living in America to be fun, easy going, and resourceful (generally speaking). Based on my limited experience I would say that they, as a whole, usually don't take themselves too seriously, and they can often figure out how to do something cheaper, faster, and better than you would ordinarily think possible.

Case in point - one time I had a car that I needed to get emissions testing done for. It was a mess of a car (Pontiac Sunbird - only slightly less trouble than the Fiero was), and it had several issues in the engine department and wouldn't pass inspection for anything. I took it to a local shop where the guy started listing off what would need doing - adjust the idle, replace some vacuum tubing, something was up with the distributor, etc, etc.

Total cost: $Hundreds
He can fit me in: Monday

Being a poor teenager, and discouraged at this news, I decided to look around for alternatives. I needed to pass emissions to be able to drive my car, after all, and there was no way I could meet that bill for at least a few months. Now, why a seven-yr old coupe needs to pass emissions and a mostly-empty diesel-spewing bus doesn't is beyond me, but that's a separate rant. After driving around for a while I saw a non-descript service station of sorts that se habla'd Espanol, and so I decided to investigate. Pablo (yes, he really was named Pablo) came out with his friend (whose name I do not recall), and looked over the car with his bud and then came over to me and said something like this (and I am dead serious here):

Pablo: 'Okay, so we feex the car like theees, okay. You leeesin now.'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'I am going to file theeese connektors, si?'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'And then my essay over there, he eez going to [something, I don't know].'
Me (Well, it sounded like car talk): 'Si.'
Pablo: 'And then I take this screw, and tweeeest it in the tubing, si?'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'Don't let the inspector guy see this screw, or you will be fucked, si?'
Me: 'Si. Si. Cuanto es?'
Pablo: '¿Qué? '
Me (embarassed): 'Uhh, sorry, umm.. How much will it be, and when can you guys do the work?'
Pablo: 'Eet's already done essay, eets $20.'

And the inspectors never found the screw, or any of the other 'modifications' made in the engine, and I passed emissions, and all was well. For $20! Can you beat that?!

And there are other examples I could give where I have seen or been a part of schemes that involved similar 'simplification' of ordinarily complex tasks - from buying beer without ID to landscaping tricks to SAT preparation. So it strikes me as a bit, well, odd that the story above ever came to pass. In other words, what the hell were they thinking?

I figure that the conversation must have gone wrong somewhere along the line, and that's how these two ended up in jail hoping to hell that their fellow inmates don't discover that they like to dress in women's underwear. Maybe the conversation went something like this:

Guy #1: 'Man, essay, I could reeeelly go for some cervezas right now.'
Guy #2: 'Yeah man, but we don't got no money, man.'
Guy #1: 'I don't get paid until Wednesday man, what are we going to do?'
Guy #2: 'Hey man, I got a peestola, we could go rob the store and then get some beers after, man.'
Guy #1: 'Yeah, we could do that. But how will we disguise ourselves, essay?'
Guy #2: 'We could wear your seeester's panties on our faces!(?)'
Guy #1: 'Yeah man, that sounds like a good idea!' <---- Here's where it must have gone wrong.
Guy #2: 'Let's go.'

Like it or not, the conversation had to go something like that. Maybe we could substitute baby formula and hard times for beers and carelessness, but at some point the panties had to be brought up and agreed upon. Now, as much as I am a fan of thongs (God bless them), I would not try to conceal my face with one - well, unless maybe it was some kind of kinky litt --- you know what, I'll finish that thought privately.... Anyway, if I was forced to choose underwear for the job then I would probably cut eye holes in some granny panties and just go for it - but you can't possibly be constrained to underwear as your only concealment option right? I get if you're not a regular criminal (good for you!) and as such don't own a couple ski masks, but what about hankerchiefs? What about shop rags? What about rolling up a turtleneck and putting on a hat? What about a Halloween mask? What about wrapping an ace-bandage around your head - ala the mummy? What about a combination of scratch and sniff stickers and sun-glasses? What about using a goddamned shopping bag and cutting eye-holes in it - you could probably even find one of those in the parking lot or in the dumpster outside. Something had to be better than thongs, right guys? I mean, come on... Well... I guess everything gets clearer in retrospect, doesn't it? ;)