You know, I knew this was coming up, but it almost slipped past me.
But it didn't...courtesy of Wizbang.
Ten years ago today, the husband gave me this:
Engagement
Ring (sorry for the quality---couldn't quite get it right.)
The husband, some months before OJ did his slow speed chase, had
proposed at a rest stop along Interstate 680 in western Iowa. We were
traveling back to Des Moines from Omaha and it hadn't been a smooth
visit. I'm not going to go into details, but the man pulled over to the
side of the road, cut the loop off his yo-yo and proposed, using the
loop as my "ring." I said yes.
One of his friends told me later that this meant the husband was really
devoted to me because to do such a thing---cutting the loop off a
favorite yo-yo---was not something one did lightly. And he was
completely serious when he said this. Granted he was also drunk, but he
really did mean it.
Fast forward six months, and we're on the road between Des Moines and
Omaha again. This time we're going to Omaha to do wedding things over
the weekend. It's a Friday night and we're getting married in two
months. Whenever we're on the road, it's a running joke that whenever
we pass a rest stop, whomever is driving asks, "Gotta pee?" It probably
doesn't sound all that funny, but it is for us. It's a long
story that I'm not going to tell on a blog. Anyway, we're almost to
Omaha. It's a perfect Midwestern summer night. Warm, starry, a slight
breeze to carry your mind away. The perfect relaxer. I'm driving and I
see the sign up ahead. I ask the usual question. The husband,
surprisingly, replies in the affirmative: he can always hold it---he's
a man that way. I pull over and he goes inside. I stay put. When he
returns, he pulls the ring out of his pocket and asks me to marry him
again. I say "yes." We drive on, we arrive and walk into my parent's
house. The TV was on, per usual, and They were showing the white Bronco
again. I figured it was a recap, until my Dad tells me that OJ was
still driving it. He'd been driving the Bronco when we'd left Des
Moines. He was still driving around when we got to Omaha. It's a two
hour drive. I couldn't help thinking how different the world was and
how varied the people in it were. Here I was a very happy girl who
couldn't stop staring at her left hand, and OJ, well...
Then, in the fashion of most self-absorbed twenty-three-year-olds, I
ran to my Mom to show her my ring. And OJ was forgotten.