"Does it smell a little like sewage to you?"

August 1, 201214 yr

Most of you wouldn't have much reason to know, but my ladyfriend has been in Wales for the last year studying a kidney tumor disease called tuberous sclerosis on a Fulbright Grant. She got back on Saturday evening (for good), which is pretty fantastic as far as I'm concerned. Long story short, I got engaged last night...but it was a bit of a harrowing experience. Thought I'd share:

Well my original plan was originally to leave work, take her to dinner down at Buona Vita in Dayton, KY, leave there and walk over to get ice cream at Schneider's in Bellevue, and then walk down to the Bellevue Beach park on the river, where we used to go sit on a particular park bench after evening walks when I was still living down in Bellevue. All that being said, my first mistake was in trying to keep things so completely "sly" by not making any plans with her ahead of time, that plans started being made for me.

So I left work a little early yesterday. I drove to Boyle Jewelers in Elsmere and picked up the beautiful 85 year old vintage size 8 ring, where it's been sitting in free (and fully insured) safekeeping since I bought it a few months back - highly recommend them, by the way. I got the ring, hurried back to my house to change, and then headed over to get the girlfriend for dinner. When I got there, I was informed that since she had out of the country so long, she reeeeeeeeeally wanted to go to LaRosa's for dinner...with her parents.

Okay. That'll work. I can't really protest too much anyhow...don't want to raise suspicion. We'll just do dinner really quickly, and we'll head down to Bellevue for ice cream, and then "decide to take a walk".

LaRosa's worked out fine. Plates were being taken away from the table, drinks were being finished...and then the future F-I-L mentioned to his beautiful daughter, "Oh, hey, I need you to come back home tonight so you can show me how to use the computer scanner so I can scan that stuff I was telling you about."

Stay calm...this will work out. Schneider's is open until 10. It's only about 8:00 right now.

Get back to her parents. The desktop computer won't recognize the scanner. The laptop computer won't recognize the scanner. Reinstall the driver for the scanner...still no luck. Future F-I-L is getting frustrated trying to get it to work, girlfriend is getting frustrated trying to get it to work, I'm sweating bullets as I try to act like things with me are business as usual while I finger the engagement ring I've got floating around in my left pocket and watch minutes tick off of the clock. They decide to give up on the scanner for the evening at precisely 9:13.

Okay...I'm in Lakeside Park. If I drive with a heavy right foot, we can be in Bellevue by 9:30. The night's not doomed yet.

Get the girlfriend in gear and head out the door. I open the door to my truck, she climbs in. I close the door, walk around to mine, and as I'm getting into the driver side, she has the center console opened and is pulling out the band of plastic sizer rings that I had completely forgotten was in there.

Crap. Oh well, we'd talked about engagement rings MONTHS ago. She'd even used that to figure out what size ring she wore on that finger. She knew I had that somewhere...why wouldn't it be in the center console of my truck...right? ?‍♂️

Just move on. Driving to Bellevue now. Girlfriend is fiddling with the ring sizers.

"Oh...wow. It looks like my finger must have swelled since it's warmer out now. It looks like the size 8 is really tight on me."

AWESOME! I just picked up a couple months' salary worth of platinum and diamonds that WON'T fit on her finger very well. Well this is going just fantastically. Well...the ring is a size 8...she told me she wears a size 8...I guess we'll just have to get the damn thing re-sized after I propose. Calm it down and move on.

9:35. At Schneider's. Ice cream...check.

"Hey, why don't we just walk down to our bench at the Bellevue Beach?"

"Oh, that sounds like a great idea."

Excellent.

Walking into the park. It's kinda warm out, but it's breezy. No big deal.

"Does it smell a little like sewage to you?"

Of course! I'm trying to take my girlfriend somewhere just *remotely* significantly special to propose, and OF COURSE there's eau de toilet-stank rolling gently off the river. It's really not *that* noticeable though, is it? And we're here anyway. Who knows, maybe I'll just propose tomorrow. Why waste good ice cream, a nice evening, a nice walk anyhow?

Head down to "our bench". The one we always sat in when we'd talk our walks in the evening. The one that's right next to the river bank under the absolutely enormous cottonwood tree. ....not another soul in the park...except for that STUPID FREAKING OLD MAN SITTING ON OUR BENCH SMOKING A CIGARETTE!!! Well, this couldn't be any more ridiculous.

Deep breath. Let's find another bench.

Sitting at the other bench...by no trees...under the buzzing halogen street lamp with the bugs flying all over it.

Hey! Look at that! Jerk-face McSmokerguy is getting up and leaving. Let's go snag our bench back!

Sit down. Put my arm around my girl. We finish our ice cream and sit and chat for a little.

You know what...now that we've been sitting here for 10 or 15 minutes, I don't really think I notice that sewer smell any more. Eghh...it wasn't really *that* bad in the first place, was it?

{{Slowly reaches his hand into his left pocket, hoping not to be detected.}}

"You know, I still think I smell sewage a little. Why does it smell that way?"

You know what, this is slowly destroying my soul. I'm not going to go through this again. I'm just proposing...right...now!

So yeah, we got engaged. And within about 20 minutes, the whole thing was VERY funny...to both of us.