Day 270: Congratulated A Newly Engaged Couple

I've described the day I proposed to Lindsey on here before, but I only really gave part of the story.  I told you about the crazy sound she made (I compared it to a wounded badger), how she didn't think it was real, and that I had to ask her 4-5 times to marry me before she was able to say yes.  It all sounds like such a sweet memorable moment, and it was...but leading up to the proposal wasn't so sweet.

One thing about me that my wife, friends, and family can vouch for is the fact that I have no problem sharing all kinds of information.  If you ask them, they would probably say I share far too much information.  I can't believe I am about to tell the world the story leading up to my proposal, but I am.  If you aren't a fan of bathroom stories/humor, this might be the time to go visit another website.  I'd suggest Hammacher Schlemmer because I have always wanted one of those branding irons that you use on your steaks.  If you've hung around this long, I promise that this is a completely tame retelling of the actual events.

So the day had finally come.  I was going to propose to the woman that I loved.  I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, but that didn't mean that I wasn't nervous at all.  I wanted to make sure that everything went off without a hitch and that she was completely surprised, so I was majorly stressing out.  The plan was to go wine tasting at a few of our favorite wineries and at the last winery, we would go walk in the vineyard overlooking the mountains where I would get down on a knee.  By the time we got to the second to last winery, the nerves had overtaken me to the point that my stomach was tossing and turning so that I felt like I had food poisoning.  As we were preparing to leave, I told Lindsey, in probably the most frightened way possible, that I had to use the restroom.  However, this was kind of an old school winery, and the restroom consisted of a lone blue port-o-potty.  As with most port-o-potties, the toilet seat was completely disgusting, which was terrible because I am already stricken with an immense fear of public restrooms.  Since the toilet was too disgusting to sit on, I had to make due with the urinal that was hanging on the inside.  I am not proud of this, but it had to be done due to the direness of the situation.  Since the port-o-potty was in direct sunlight, it had gotten so hot in there that I had to take my shirt off.  I'm not sure if it was the stress of the day or the stress of the situation, but I got so light headed in there that I nearly passed out.  I finished up, got myself together, and made my way back to the car looking completely haggard and disheveled.  Unbeknownst to Lindsey, I had just had one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life minutes before what was supposed to be one of the most important moments of my life.  Well as you can de-deuce (pun and misspelling completely intended), everything worked out alright because I have a beautiful wife and daughter to show for it.  So why did I just share this completely embarrassing moment in my life?  Well I'm not completely sure, but I guess it somewhat ties in with my random act from today.  I saw a couple taking their engagement photos on a bridge in Chicago this afternoon, and rather than just walk by them, I decided to stop and say something.  So today, for my random act of kindness, I congratulated a random couple on the street on their engagement and wished them well in their future life together.  They gave me kind of a weird look at first, but then thanked me for my well wishes.  Now I will go ahead and crawl into a hole and hide since I shared this story.