Outrageous Lies: Before the Proposal [Part 2]

When we left off in Part 1, Jordan had just arrived at my parents' house, and my dad was striding across the yard toward Jordan's truck. My dad is a nice person, and he and Jordan get along really well, but when Jordan saw my dad making a beeline for him, he started sweating.

"Hey, guys," said my dad. "What..." He paused. "Oh sh--." My dad doesn't usually curse, but desperate times and all that jazz. "Uh, come on in."

They'd planned on Jeff staying in the car, but my dad was staring them down, and neither felt like they could say no. So they both got out and followed my dad into the house.

"Look who's here," my dad said to my mom. "It's Jordan."
"Jordan?" she said and looked behind him toward the truck. "Is Amanda here?"
"No, she's... not," Jordan said.
Then realization dawned on her. "Oh." She turned around to look at my dad, but he had walked into the kitchen. He returned ten seconds later with a full glass of wine. My dad is not usually a cursing wineo, but desperate times and all that jazz.

"Let's get this over with," he said and took three large gulps. Then my mom started crying. While this was happening, Jeff was standing awkwardly in the doorway, and my sister had come out of her room.

That's how Jordan ended up sitting in my parents' living room, talking to them about proposing to me, with Jeff and my sister sitting awkwardly to the side. After it was over, my dad told Jordan that if he ever hurt me, he'd break his kneecaps. Then he reminded Jordan that he owned several hunting rifles and wouldn't hesitate to "make it look like an accident."

Calm down, Al Pacino. 

Jordan nodded and assured my dad that if he did do anything to hurt me, he'd be smart enough not to let anybody find out about it until he was halfway to Mexico.*
*There's a 99.43% chance he didn't really say that.

The deed being done, Jordan and Jeff headed back to Oklahoma. THEN, Jeff had his friend, let's call her Jenny, write on his Facebook wall. It said something like, "Thanks so much for the guitar! You're the best!" This was in hopes that I would see it and think, I guess they really did go to Texas to drop off a guitar.

LIES.

After that, all Jordan had to do was sit back for the next two weeks and pretend like he didn't know what I was talking about when I told him my parents had gotten their Christmas tree (he'd already seen it) or that my dad had put lights on our house for the first time ever (he'd already seen them) or that my mom had gotten her hair cut (he'd already seen it). 

And all my family had to do was play it cool when I told them that I would TOTALLY know if Jordan was planning on proposing and that there was no way he was proposing at Christmas.

So we all spent the day in Chicago on December 26, and Jordan proposed at the Bean while my dad and sister hid behind a bush and took creeper pictures. It's a running joke in our family that my dad is terrible at taking pictures, so the fact that he actually got a shot of Jordan down on one knee is the crowning photographic achievement of his life.

And then a few months later, Jordan and I took engagement pictures with some friends of ours. In some of them we actually smiled. In this one we did not.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

SEE ALSO

A Bean, a Bench, and a Bride: The Proposal Story

Flashback: 10 Things about the Proposal

Outrageous Lies: Before the Proposal [Part 1]

There's one topic (besides my marathon and my wedding) that I don't think I'll ever get tired of talking about, and that's the outrageous lies that were told to me by my future husband and loving family to hide the fact that Jordan was going to propose to me in Chicago the day after Christmas.

I've written about the actual proposal on this blog, but I've never talked about how the whole thing came about. I am now choosing to document the story on this blog for historical purposes. This will be in two parts, because I know some of you skimmers won't last through the whole thing if I didn't break it up.

This past weekend, Jordan reminded me that December 14 was the three-year anniversary of the day he drove to Texas to talk to my dad about proposing. This isn't an anniversary we celebrate or anything like that, but every year Jordan reminds me about it because, as he says, it was one of the scariest moments of his life. (Possible slight exaggeration.)

Our very first picture together ever!

Proposal stories are funny if you really think about it. We're beaten over the head from the time we're two years old with all this crap about telling the truth and never keeping secrets from your spouse or family, but then all of the sudden it's totally okay to pile lie on top of lie to keep the proposal a secret. 

I love it.

My mom likes to remind me about how I was all, "Oh I am SO going to know if Jordan is planning on proposing. He's a terrible liar." Yeah, apparently I don't know anything, and Jordan is, in fact, a fantastic liar. I'm only slightly concerned.

It was December 2010.

Jordan and I had been dating for almost a year and a half, and I asked him to come with me to Illinois for Christmas. My whole family was driving up, and I thought it would be fun to have Jordan come with, since he'd never been to Chicago before or met the majority of my extended family.

Jordan will tell you that he'd been saving up money for a ring for a little bit and started thinking about when and how he would propose to me, and when I mentioned Chicago, he knew it was perfect since Chicago is my favorite place in the whole world. So he told his mom, and they went ring shopping together, and then he had to find a way to ask my dad.

I know some people scoff and say the whole ceremony of asking for the girl's dad's blessing is outdated and ridiculous, but my family is such an important part of my life that it was less about getting permission and more just about including them in the excitement. Plus, I do personally like the tradition. I just think it's nice.

Jordan considered just calling my dad up on the phone, but he said that he felt like he needed to make the three-hour drive to Texas and talk to my dad in person. The problem now was how to make that happen without me knowing about it, so he enlisted the help of our friend Jeff. 

They concocted a story about how Jeff needed to drive to Texas to drop off a guitar for a (girl) friend of his, and he wanted Jordan to come with him. Not only that, but Jeff needed Jordan to drive because he (Jeff) didn't trust his crappy car to make it all the way there. 

When Jordan told me about it, he made a huge deal about how annoyed he was that he had to give up his entire Saturday to drive to Texas just because Jeff had a crush on a girl. This story was 100% believable because Jeff is the sort of guy who routinely has crushes on girls and does ridiculous things for them. Driving six hours round trip just to drop off a guitar was only slightly unusual, but Jordan's seemingly honest irritation sold me.

I even got annoyed at Jeff myself and told Jordan what a great friend he was being!
What a sucker I am.

So on December 14, Jordan and Jeff headed south. (Jordan decided to have Jeff go with him on the drive for moral support, so at least that part was true.) My aunt and uncle live on the same street at my parents, so Jordan had enlisted my aunt's help to make sure my parents were home when he got there. He didn't want my parents to know he was coming in advance, because they'd guess what he was coming for, and it would ruin the surprise and negate the whole point of driving all that way in the first place. So Aunt Mindy stalled them while my mom kept trying to leave to go to the grocery store.

Jordan got lost on the way to my parents' house and started freaking out, but after a quick stop to check the GPS, he finally made it. He pulled into the driveway, put the truck in park, and looked up to see my dad striding purposefully across the yard...

Check back on Friday for Part 2!

5 Things Other People Like that I Don't

1.

Coffee

As previously mentioned, I do not like coffee. Sometimes wish I did because then when I said "let's meet for coffee" I could actually drink coffee. Plus it usually smells good and it's a really easy gift. 

I hear it's an acquired taste, which leads me to believe I could like it if I tried it and/or loaded it down with enough sugar and cream, but that honestly just sounds like too much work, so I'll stick with my tea, thankyouverymuch.

2. 

Wine

You guys, I want to like wine SO BAD. You all look so mysterious and fashionable, swirling your wine and drinking out of one of those long-stemmed glasses. I hear people mention the luxuriousness of going home to a glass of wine and a bubble bath, but I just don't get it. I use white wine for cooking, and that's about it. Occasionally I'll drink half a glass of sweet wine, but the dry stuff? No thank you. 

Speaking of bubble baths...

3.

Baths

I cannot describe with human words how much I hate baths. Hate is a strong word, and yet it's true. I hate everything about them. 

First of all, you spend an hour filling up the bathtub, by which time the water is cold. And if it's not cold yet, it will be five minutes after you get in. And then even IF it says hot and you manage to not get soap in your eye, what are you doing?

You're lying in a tub filled with rapidly-cooling water.
Eye level with the toilet, which, by the way, probably needs to be cleaned.

Someone explain the desire to take a bath, because I don't get it.

4. 

Staying Up Until Midnight

I could probably get a lot more done if I stayed up late. Read more blogs. Keep up with the Kardashians. Eat more cookies. You know, the important things in life.

But I like going to bed at 9:30, dang it! When I was in college I thought going to bed before 1:00 in the morning would mean I was a short fuse away from death, so I don't know what that says about me now, but whatever. It's 8:36 right now, and this grandma is getting tired.

I WISH I could stay up until midnight, and I suppose I could if I wanted to. But I don't. I really am not sure how I will have children some day, because I've heard you don't get much sleep when you're a mom. I might kill someone.

5. 

Saturday Night Live

This one might end our friendship, but I'll say it anyway. I don't think SNL is funny. 
I feel like Chandler saying he hates dogs.

The Sarah Palin bit a couple of years ago? Hilarious. Need more cow bell? Heck yes. But most of the skits that I happen to catch in passing on the off chance I am actually awake after dark I do not find funny. I can't explain why, but I just think it's dumb. I want to like it, because then I'd actually "get" all the SNL references. 

If I had a dollar for every time someone started a sentence with, "It's like that SNL skit where..." Yeah, no. Haven't seen it. And if I did, I probably didn't think it was funny. 
I think something might be wrong with me.

What about you? 

Is there anything everyone else seems to like that you just don't?