Part Eight: Ringzilla

After Scott gave me the, I want to marry you sooner than later talk, I did what any respectable, young, in-love girl would do.

I drove him nuts.

The way Scott tells it, from then on it was all I could ever talk about, wondering, begging even, when we were going to get engaged.

I don’t quite recall that, but who really wants to admit to their own shortcomings?

I do remember quite a lot going on all at the same time. I was given the opportunity to move to SLO in the fall to live with a childhood friend and several of her friends. I needed to know whether Scott thought I should move in the fall or wait until we got married. I bought my first car. And I was planning my first solo European vacation and I really wanted to go to Europe engaged.

Maybe that translates to asking about an engagement a lot, but I maintain it was because there was a lot riding on being engaged or not. At least I like to think so.

We never looked at rings together. I worked at Longs Drug Store at the time. It’s like a Walgreens, or a Rite-Aid, but way better. At least back then it was. And in the cosmetics department they had cheap costume jewelry and I would often show him rings I liked. I also knew I liked Colleen’s princess-cut ring. But I was so young, I didn’t really know much about diamonds or what I really wanted. All I know, is day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, I grew impatient. How dare he say he wants to marry me by the end of year and then not propose the very next minute? You can’t string a girl a long. It’s just not fair.

Says the girl who was quickly becoming a monster.

Several weeks went by and my dad’s birthday came along. Scott said he couldn’t come in to town because of work. And I was bummed. How much more fun to torture someone with unending persistence then in person? The afternoon of his party the phone rang and it was Scott. He apologized once again that he couldn’t be there for the party that night. I said I understood but was sad none the less. Then the doorbell rang and my heart froze.

“Maybe you should answer that” he said.

I hung up on him and went running for the door. And there he stood, cell phone in hand, looking smug and rather proud of himself. He had been in town all day, but had lied and said he had just got into town. And I believed him. He had had a busy morning; he took my dad to breakfast to ask his permission. He had gone to the jewelers with his mom. And I was blissfully unaware. I was just so happy to have my man in town for the weekend.

At this point I must interject something. And solely because it needs to be told, but sadly, I have no recollection of when it actually happened, but it was so gosh darn romantic that I just have to share it. For extra romantic mushy-gushy love story sake I’ll say it happened the morning after my dad’s party. But it very well could have been way before. Or way after. I consulted Scott, and we're about 85% sure it did in fact happen this same weekend.

At the time, our favorite TV show was a little show called Ed. About the bowing alley lawyer and his cast of random employees and friends and the love of his life Carol Vessey played by Julie Bowen, the Neutrogena girl. Oh and Justin Long as the loveable perfectly enduring geeky Warren Cheswick, back before he was the Mac guy and dating Drew Barrymore. I digress.

In one of the first episodes, Carol breaks up with her live-in fiancé because she couldn’t throw a waffle at him. They were having breakfast and he asked for a waffle and she wanted to throw it at him but just couldn’t. He wasn’t that kind of guy. After recounting the story to Ed, she awoke the next morning to Ed, standing below her bedroom window, chucking frozen waffles at her window. How she managed to not marry him that very day I don’t know. Is there anything more romantic than waffles being thrown at you? She went on to try to marry Dennis Martino only to be wooed several more times and finally successfully by Ed.

Scott loved that show. I remember getting in trouble once because I called him during the middle of it. If he was working, I would tape it, (remember taping things? Like on VCR?) and we would watch it when he came in town. We loved the quirky humor, the bold, silly, romantic gestures of Ed and I personally wanted every coat Carol Vessey owned.

So the morning after my dad’s party I awoke to the oddest sound. I peaked out my window. And there was Scott; surrounded by boxes of frozen waffles, throwing them at my window. My roof was covered in frozen waffles. While this might be the weirdest thing ever, I was overwhelmed with the gesture and ran downstairs and out on to the lawn to kiss my prince charming, surrounded by Eggos. What geeks we were. Geeks in love.