I'm Sorry, Will I What?

So, hmmmm, what do you want to talk about?

Do you want to talk about the Thursday I was exposed to a variety of communicable diseases? The highlights of that experience involve my keys, my cell phone, a woman with unwashed hands, Target, and a potentially dead body.

Do you want to talk about the fact that yesterday I had nothing, Nothing NOTHING to do and so I, in fact, did nothing Nothing NOTHING! Except, I did watch a lot of TV. Specifically, I flipped back and forth between Tupac: Resurrection and Grizzly Man. The impact of that experience is still playing out in my head and once I have fully understood its meaning, we will reconvene here and discuss. It’ll be huge. Trippy, even, I believe.

Do you want to talk about the time I got to use the phrase, “brother from another mother” (aka “brotha from anotha mutha”) twice in one month and it was totally appropriate both times?

Do you want to talk about the fact that today was very disillusioning on a cosmic level and I realized that a gigantic portion of my life is doomed to failure? No, me neither.

Do you want to talk about the fact that I have tricked some foolish tall boy into thinking that I am the sort of person he wants to hang out with for good, permanently, and until he is dust? Me too. It was fun.

So, D’oh. You’ve heard of him, scroll down if you haven’t. He is known best around these parts for sleeping through crises and making poorly thought out comments about my comprehension of world events. But, he is also lovely and kind and digs me. And wow, is he tall. His wingspan is the length of a couch. I’m not kidding. Ask my sister. Brother is tall. The fact that he cannot, in fact, take flight, continues to baffle me.

Anyway, let’s not get off track.

(You: “Hi, Erin? Spit it out, mmmkay? This story happened weeks ago and when you no longer abandon your blog for weeks at a time, then you can tell your stories however you want. Until then, you will reach your point and you will reach it soon, or you will feel wrath.” Me: “Whatever, I know only my sisters and D’oh read this, so you just hush-a-long, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmkay?”)

Anyway, let’s still not get off track.

Now, the fact that D’oh and I are were thinking about throwing down matrimonial-style was officially? The Worst Held Secret EVER!!! We have a pretty plaque to prove it (not the tooth kind, that’s yucky). Places were booked, is what I’m saying. Places were even booked, canceled, and then new places were booked, is what I am saying now, before we were even engaged. Which we now are, but we were not for a very long time after we had booked the things, and that made me feel….like an a—hole. And that is so not how I enjoy feeling. But D’oh had a plan and he wanted to stick with it and I wanted to be the girl that was cool with that. And I really, really, RRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAALLLLLLLY tried to be that girl, and I succeeded minus one freak out that both of us weathered fairly well.

Anywho, I am waiting very much patiently for my proposal (not my ring, different, much longer story there, y’all take a vote and let me know if you want to hear it) up until the night that our PARENTS are going to MEET even though we STILL ARE NOT ENGAGED NOT THAT I WAS AT ALL FREAKING OUT ABOUT THAT!!! SHUT UP, I WAS NOT! Or are they?

Here I am, innocently emerging from getting ready, and having a really good hair day, surprisingly enough when I encounter both my sisters waiting for me. It went a little something like this.

Me: Hey

Sisters (intently staring):

Me: Ummm, hey?

Sisters (intently staring):

Me: He-ey?

Sisters: D’oh left something for you in the utility closet

(Oooh, let me interrupt here. The utility closet was not even in the original plans for my parents’ new house. Imagine where we would be if my parents had not been so patient that they agreed to wait for the builder’s every freaking move with so much goodwill that the builder stuck an extra room in their home! You know where we would be? At the beginning of this useless parenthetical note.)

Me:…

Sisters (thinking to themselves, “This is why we don’t let our children throw each other around and injure each other’s heads, look what we did to this poor thing”): The utility closet

At this point we all walk to the utility closet.

What was in this closet: A giant tape recorder, a big white envelope with my NAME on it, and a giant arrow pointing to the giant tape recorder that said PRESS PLAY.

What I saw in the closet: …

Sisters (concerned for my brain stem): Right there

Me: …

Sisters (pointing wildly and considering medical intervention): RIGHT THERE

Me: …

Me: What?...Wrapping paper?...Huh……. OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH, a beer?

My sisters had placed a beer on the giant tape recorder, next to the giant envelope and giant arrow. I see the beer, still don’t see anything else (Is that a red flag?). One shoulder shake and a bop on the head later I figure out I’m supposed to press play. However, and this part was not my fault, the arrows for play and fast forward and all the directions are all backwards. Unnecessary roadblock, I say, European innovation, you say. Then you say “ouch” because I pinch you. I figure it out half an hour later (who’s got the Master’s Degree up in here?) and there is D’oh’s voice over the Mission: Impossible theme telling me that my ride will be there shortly.

Only. Shortly is an HOUR away, and I am already ready and now I need to puke. And also I apparently need someone to tell me that I am not, in fact, going out to dinner with my parents and D’oh’s parents because I am slow (Shannon: “…to walk!”).

Finally, an hour passes, I drink my beer and then a 13-year-old makes me a hell of a margarita, and if you have seen anything cuter than my nieces and nephews seeing a limo pull up to the house, you are Bambi’s neighbor.

And, of course, I have the most inappropriate ugly-AND-wrongly-buttoned-vest-wearing limo driver driving a limo full of birthday balloons. Ken, that would be him, insists that it is my birthday. It is not. Ken insists that we are picking up several people. We are not. Ken also insists that D’oh has not done a very good job planning this out and if he had only told the limo people what was up, they could have really done it up right. Ken, apparently? Not much for getting off on the right foot.

(You: “Damn, wrap this @#$% up already!” Me: “That’s no way to make friends.”)

So, four clues, forty-four bug bites, one dig in the sand and fourteen internal, “Shut up, Ken”s later, I arrive at the beach where D’oh is waiting. We walk a million blocks to a little blanket and chairs setup where I…melt.

Wait.

I do not melt from emotion or excitement or la-la-la but from being so sweaty from the fifty pounds of humid air that has taken up residence on my shoulders. It was…not cold.

We both power through, though and D’oh gets down on one knee and says,

“Erin”

And then he says,

“Me”

(He said a lot of things in the middle that were very lovely that are not so much your business but even if they were, I don’t remember word for word. I was a little preoccupied by the fact that my heart was beating like a million miles a minute. I’m not being sappy, I was worried about infarction. I don’t know what that is, but I think it’s heart-related, no?)

I said, “Of course I will” and now we are officially getting hitched and it is going to be so super fun. It is so super fun that writing this actually made me feel better today and today was, officially, the Worst Day This MONTH!

For real, I have a pretty plaque.