A multi-post blog in which I detail the many, many times Michael has botched telling me important information. These will include, but not necessarily be limited to, The Time He Proposed, The Time He Decided To Tell Me He Wanted Kids, The Time He Called Me To Tell Me He Won Big At A Casino, and The Time He Told Me He Was Bringing Home A Puppy.

Exhibit A: The Time He Proposed

On paper, it’s a great idea. Propose to your girlfriend your first night in the house you just bought together, proving that not only are you all-in on the financial commitment, you’re also ready to spend the rest of your lives up in each other’s spaces. 

Here’s how it went down: after spending a grueling, 16-hour day moving from a 3^rd story apartment into a small house, walking up and down stairs countless times, carrying heavy furniture, we were now surrounded by boxes while feeling hot, sweaty, and overwhelmed. 

He’d hidden the ring box in a larger cardboard box and the plan was to ask me to open it to get the TV remote, and that’s how I would find the ring. Except he forgot, in the plethora of unopened cardboard boxes, exactly which box contained said ring. A crucial miscalculation. This was what ensued:

Michael: Hey, can you look in that box over there for the remote?

Me: Sure. (picks up box) It’s empty. 

M: (realizing the shitty dilemma we are now in) Um. I think it’s in this other box, on the other side of the room. Could you grab it?

Me: The box that is closer to you than to me? That box?

Michael: …yes. Could you get it.

Me: …ok. (begrudgingly gets up, walks across the room to a box 6 inches from where Michael is sitting, opens box). I see no remote.

M: (increasingly panicked) Oh wait, I think it’s that box over there…

Repeat three more times with increasing levels of bitchiness from me.

Me: (opening last box, too irritated to recognize what’s inside) There’s no fucking remote in here (throws aside).

M: (picks up the ring from the discarded box) Did you see this?

Me: What? No. What’s that?

M: …

Me: Holy shit. Are you proposing?

M: Yes.

Me: Are going to make me plan a wedding right now? I can’t plan a wedding right now. We haven’t even unpacked our house.

M: (quietly slips ring back in pocket)

Me: I’m freaking out.  (starts crying hysterically)

M: so…that’s a no

Me: Of course it’s not a no, I just can’t handle a new house and wedding planning right now. I will marry you once the boxes are unpacked.

M: Jesus Christ, I’m not asking you to marry me TOMORROW. Just at some future point.

Me: (starts calming down) Oh ok. I’ll marry you. Later.

M: Ok fine. I’ll marry you. Also, you make it sound like getting married is part of a chore to-do list.

Me: MY ENTIRE LIFE IS IN MESSY, DISORGANIZED BOXES RIGHT NOW, MICHAEL. FOCUS ON THE GODDAMN BOXES.

M: (silently pondering the next 50 years)

Me: …ok but do you know where the TV remote is for real.

This could have gone so differently if he’d just picked a restaurant to pop the question. If only I had known that him botching the delivery of important information would be a theme for years to come.