The Proposal

                                                The Preparation

It’s a day that all women dream about and all men prepare for – the marriage proposal. Well, my time came on December 18th, the night before my girlfriend and I traveled to Nashville so she could meet my family for the first time.

Proposals typically come in two forms:
The smooth ones where things go as planned. The clouds part and the birds sing as the woman cries out a yes, and the man breathes a huge sigh of relief. These typically are the well planned and elaborately expensive proposals performed by wealthy and attentive men.
The not so smooth are train wrecks performed by inattentive men who take the proposal for granted. The aftermath can consist of the woman running away and the guy standing there looking flabbergasted or the woman crying a no and the man breathing a sigh of relief.

Mine ended up falling in between both of these categories; so allow me to start from the beginning and share my experience of the proposal.

My story starts one short month ago, around the beginning of December 2007. I decided my beautiful Latina was the one to spend the rest of my life with and raise a family.  The quandary was how to go about the proposal, what kind of ring to get and last but certainly not least, when to attempt this bold adventure. So I shall start with the when:

Since she was going to Nashville to meet my family for the first time, my decision was whether to ask before we left or after we got there. It was brought to my attention, by a friend of mine, that I should not ask her in Nashville, “What if she says no?” he tells me.  I agreed; it would be an awkward four hour flight back to Los Angeles. I had a strong feeling she would say yes but it still made sense. So it was settled, ask her before we leave.

Next, the ring. This would prove to be my downfall. I finally realized I have a serious listening problem. Actually, I learned this by a crying woman, lambasting me in Spanish.  My girlfriend had been throwing me hints about the type of ring she likes for over two months. First, she started with the subtle hints:

“Oh, I really like that ring, Jayson,” she would say while one of the several Jared commercials rudely interrupted my football game. These subtle hints went on for about a month; she would quickly point out a ring she liked if she saw it on television or on a woman’s finger on the street and I would ignore the subliminal message with no consequences.

Because the subtle hints did not hit their mark, the not so subtle hints were next on the agenda. They were the obvious ones like stopping by a jewelry store and pointing directly at a ring she covets. She would point out these beautiful white gold ones with a single diamond that looked like it was on steroids. She was absolutely adamant about how she only liked white gold – no yellow gold – just white gold with the square diamond center piece. Okay, now I know what she likes so the day comes to buy the white gold ring she craves and how convenient, there was a jewelry store right beside my gym. It was the perfect cover; workout and then go to the jewelry store- she would never suspect a thing.

I walk in and it’s too cramped and hot. I have to hurry up, so I can get out of here; the walls are closing in on me. I see what she likes – a yellow gold ring with a round diamond center surrounded by two smaller diamonds on each side. It’s exactly what she was telling me she wanted and to top it off it came in a wedding set – three rings for the price of one. Wow, this was easy. I wonder why so many men freak out about buying rings; it was in and out for me. On to the last task:

I like to consider myself a creative type so the how to ask should come easy to me. I was watching the Lakers play the Bulls the night of December 18th when a great idea hit me. I will give it to her like a Christmas present; I will put it in a big box and make her think it‘s her gift – brilliant.

I turn to her with the exuberance of a five year old watching The Wiggles, “how about we give our gifts to each other tonight, before we leave for Nashville. What do you think?”

“That’s fine, if you want too.” Her nonchalant response has the intelligent left side of my brain screaming, ABORT, ABORT!

Thank God that part of my brain keeps me out of trouble. When it senses danger, it warns me and I avoid disaster....so I go to my bedroom and lock the door to wrap her “present” in privacy. I get this big box out of the closet and pull out this disco bright blue wrapping paper to conceal it in. This shouldn’t take more than five minutes I think while staring quizzically at the box and paper.

After burning through the second roll of wrapping paper I am starting to get really frustrated; I decide to turn the Lakers game on and clear my mind for a couple minutes.
Thirty minutes later my girlfriend is knocking on the door. “I thought we were exchanging gifts. What are you doing in there?”

“I’m wrapping it and I will be right out.” I frantically jump off the bed, turn the game off and get back to work.

“You said that thirty minutes ago.” She fires back.

“Okay, hold on.” With my renewed sense of urgency, I finish my wrapping job. I set the box with the schizophrenic wrapping job on her pillow and breathe a big sigh of relief.

I open the door slowly, expecting her to be standing there with a cup to her ear and listening at the door. Evidently, her excitement has waned, because she is sitting back on the sofa enthralled in a show that consists of a bunch of bleeps interrupted by a couple actual words every once in awhile- has to be a reality show.
She sees me standing there and asks “are you ready now?”

“Yea, you open mine first though.”
She skitters past me and whispers, “about time.”

Now for part two of my epic tale:

                                                            The Aftermath

She spots the disheveled blue wrapping paper clinging to this big box lying on her pillow.  “Nice wrapping job,” she says with a giggle.
Embarrassed by the realization that it looks like a two year old with severe arthritis wrapped it, I respond “just open it.”

So she pulls off the piece of tape that is struggling to hold it together and the paper falls on the bed to reveal a big box that says GE Rice Cooker. This brings with it a look of confusion cocktailed with anger and fear. So, noticing that she is confused I make a circular motion with my fingers to let her know to keep opening. I think this relieves her fears and makes her realize it is fact, not a rice cooker that I gave her, but it’s merely a disguise.  She opens it and discovers it is filled with newspaper so she starts pulling it out with renewed enthusiasm.

When she gets to the bottom she lets out a gasp, “Oh my God Jayson, is this what I think it is?”

”Open it and see.”  I say as I move over to sit beside her on the bed, to set the proposal in motion.

“Baby, I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with…” I interrupt myself because I notice she has this sad look on her face.

“What’s the matter” I ask.

“Nothing,” she mumbles.

“What is it? Did I do something wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s not a big deal.”

“Come on tell…”

“Well, I told you several times I don’t like yellow gold. This ring is nowhere close to the rings I have been showing you for two months now.” She says.

“Ummm…”

She puts the ring on her finger, and she starts twirling it around her finger.“Also, I thought you would do this big romantic dinner and ask me all sweet but all you did was hand me a box with a ring inside.”

“Ummm…”

“Nunca pone atencion a lo que me gusta” she mutters. Oh man, she was talking to me in Spanish now. I know something is wrong. Whenever she starts talking to me in Spanish, I get worried.

“Nunca pone atencion a lo que me gusta,” she gets up and walks out of the bedroom. I’m not fluent in Spanish but I know enough to know that she is telling me I never pay attention to her. I screwed up royally and I knew it. I needed to figure a way to fix it before we left for Nashville. Damn, she didn’t let me finish proposing to her. I suppose that means she wants me to do it the right way.

Twenty minutes after the dust settled, I shuffled out to the couch to start the long crawl out of the doghouse. I told her how sorry I am and how I will make every effort to listen to what she says from now on. I even talked her into getting in the car with me; I took her back to the jewelry store and let her pick out the ring she wanted. Oh man, she got even with me there; I will be paying, literally, for not listening to her.

When we got back, I prepared a candlelight dinner and I asked her to marry me the proper way; I got on one knee and proposed. She said yes and made me a very happy man. I figure any woman that can deal with me screwing up her first proposal and she still says yes is a saint. For all the guys out there – learn from my mistake. Listen to her hints – it will cost you less in the long run.