How He Proposed (a.k.a. I'm Glad I Put Down the Jerky)

(Zaxby's cup is cropped out of this photo)

One Sunday after church, Brian asked me where I wanted to go for lunch. I said I was craving Zaxby’s.  We swung by his house, and were sitting in the car in the driveway.  Brian was being incredibly sweet and silly, and I was pretty hungry.  I am borderline hypoglycemic, and if I don’t get food when I need to, I get very cranky.  We were not getting out of the car, so after a few minutes, I said, “Why are we here again?”

Brian said, “To get some stuff we’ll need for this afternoon.”

So I replied, “Cool.  Because I’m really hungry.”

We went inside, and Brian rummaged in his cupboards to come up with something snack-y to tide me over until lunch.  He got out some jerky, which is delicious and protein-y, and incredibly difficult to eat.  You have to kind of bite into it, gnaw, hold it between your teeth and pull on it with your hands, maybe shake your head back and forth a bit – you get the picture.  Anyway, he went to his room to get whatever he needed, and I stayed in the kitchen working on the jerky.  I was pretty hungry.  After a couple of minutes, he called out and asked me to bring him a bottle of water.  I grabbed one from the fridge and went to the bedroom, still working on the jerky with my teeth and other hand.  He was again being very sweet, but he seemed a little hyper, and he didn’t take the bottle of water, so I set it down.  He gave me a big hug, and said, “I have something for you!”.  He was holding a small box, but he didn’t offer it out to me.  I tried to take another bite of the jerky (very hungry, I told you!), and was kind of pulling at it, when he opened the box.  Inside of it was a smaller box, wrapped with ribbons that he had given me.  I decided to put down the jerky, even though I hadn’t managed to get another bite.

I was starting to get nervous as he was talking, and I kept saying to myself, “I will NOT be disappointed if this is a bracelet.  I will NOT be disappointed if this is a bracelet”.  He untied the ribbons, and said more very sweet things.  Then he got down on one knee and opened the box.  It contained a beautiful ring, and he said sweet things ending with, “will you marry me?”.  I said, “YES!” and kissed him.  He put the ring on my finger, and we hugged and happily danced around his room for a while.  It was wonderful.  We started talking about what the design of the ring meant (he had it custom-made!), dates and plans, and I remembered that I was still hungry.  I suddenly blurted out “I’m glad I put down the jerky!”.  Then I thought to myself I can’t believe I just said that.

Later, when we got in the car to head to Zaxby’s, we were both still exceedingly happy.  Brian said, “What exactly did I say?  I had a whole speech prepared, but I got flustered, and I don’t think I made it through.”

I took a moment, thought really hard, and realized I didn’t remember a word of it - it was all a happy blur, except that it ended with “Will you marry me?”.  I’m just glad I put down the jerky.