Engagement And Whatnot

I mentioned last entry that I got engaged. Did you happen to check the date on that entry? January fools! No no, I did actually get engaged, and I did it at Graceland.

My sister lives out in Little Rock now, and our plan for New Year's was to see her and perhaps swing over to Memphis (it's only 2 hours away). Our plan was to hit LR on December 30th, then get up the next morning and spend New Year's Eve in Soulsville, USA. The only complication is that, before we could head to Little Rock, I had to pick Laura up from the airport in Dallas. Enter stupid airline story!

I can only assume that Airtran hates romance. Her flight was originally slated to arrive at 4 PM, which would've left ample time to get to Little Rock. The dumb-dumbs at Airtran took one look at my face, realized I was scheming something, and attempted to ruin it all by pushing the flight back to 8 PM. Little Rock is 5 hours from Dallas, so leaving after her flight arrived was a little risky. It meant a lot of late-night driving, crazed trucker style. "Why don't we just wait until the morning?" Laura asked. To that, I replied, "To hell with you!" Why such anger? Dear reader, it's because I had a plan.

We ended up getting into Little Rock about 2 AM. It was not a pleasant drive, but I powered through thanks to copious amounts of beef jerky. (I really don't understand why truckers use meth when beef jerky is so effective.) The next morning at 7 AM, we were up and on the road to Memphis. You'd think that such an early start would have me alternating between bouts of sleepiness and rampant profanity. Hardly.

Some people aren't Elvis fans. This group includes Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il, and Toby Keith. I am not in this group, and as we touched into Memphis, I started going crazy for Graceland.

We got to Graceland so quickly, we had to wait around an hour or so while Haley's squire, Mr. Buck Nasty, looked around for a Bank of America. There was stuff to see in that time, like Elvis's airplane and an impressive collection of jumpsuits. That's pretty good stuff, but due to this conspicuous box-shaped bulge in my pants, I was a little distracted.

Buck Nasty finally met up with us and we started a tour of the Mansion. One interesting thing about Graceland is that the house itself is not all that huge. The Alamo is the same way; I was always a little disappointed when I saw it from the outside. The inside of Graceland is really impressive, though. Say what you will but Elvis, but the man had a jungle room with a waterfall in his house. King of rock n roll indeed.

Back to the bulge in my pants. You may be disappointed to know that the bulge was a box containing jewelry. In fact, it had an engagement ring and my grand scheme was to present it to Laura somewhere on the grounds of Graceland. It was a fine plan, but slightly complicated because a) all of the good places in Graceland are off limits for proposals and b) I didn't want to be surrounded by hillbillies and tour guides when I did the deed.

All through the tour, I was scouting for a place that was both interesting and quiet. That's not easy to find at the biggest tourist trap in the South. Still, I persevered.

I kept looking until the end of the tour and then, when it was our time to line up for the bus, I saw a good spot. Right in front of the Mansion, there's a little stone circle. I'm not sure what the circle is for; maybe it's where Elvis placed his telescope. When we came upon it originally, that area had been swarmed by tour buses. As we left though, it was empty.

I acted quickly, hopping the rope for the bus line and dragging Laura over there on the pretense of taking pictures. And there in that little stone circle, I asked the fateful question. She said yes, everybody celebrated, and that was that.

Now, a few words about the question itself. Man, that is the hardest thing I've ever had to say. You know how in the movies the dude always has some speech worked up when he proposes? I don't think that ever actually happens, because any human uttering that question is soiling himself. Well, maybe it's not so scary if you've discussed it with the lady in advance. I would never take that approach, though. Popping the question is one of the best times ever to really surprise the hell out of someone, and I think we should all capitalize on that opportunity.

After the tour, Haley and Buck busted out the bubbly.

Then we rocked New Year's in style.

Conclusion: I surprised her good.

Posted by Cody at January 7, 2008 10:21 PM