Love You Bunches

To capture this story in its entirety you have to know that Daniel fake-proposed to me several times to “keep you on your toes.” They all typically went the same way; me impatiently asking when he was going to propose for real, him responding with asking me to marry him, some deliberation on my part but with an eventual yes, only to finish with his response of "well that one was fake" and an exasperated "DANIEL" from me. It is because of these truly loving interactions that when Daniel proposed for real I thought it was completely false. We had designed the ring together with a local Houston jeweler over the course of several months and it had finally come time to return to Houston to pick it up. We had just come off a week of watching my parents' dogs and were supposed to be home for 1 night between Arlington and Houston, leaving for Houston on Thursday (this is important later). Being the pushy person that I am, I asked Daniel if he had messaged the jeweler to make sure the ring was ready to be picked up and he said we could pick it up Saturday instead of Friday if we wanted. "Let's go Friday" I said. This is great, I thought, one less night away from our own beds; that's perfect. It's important to remember that going on Friday was my idea. Friday comes. I'm packing up and got some extra time on my hands so I decide to play with my fancy new hair styling tool only for my hair to look terrible (I returned the tool later). I'm tired at this point and mentally preparing myself to spend 5 hours in the car. I'm wearing sweatpants and an old tshirt. I drive over to Daniel's apartment to pick him up and he asks me to come to the 4th floor to load up some stuff he has to take back to Houston. This honestly should've been my first clue; hardly ever does Daniel take stuff back to Houston. But I'm all for cleaning out the closet so I didn't question it. I get to the 4th floor and I'm facetiming my mom while I'm waiting, talking about how bad my hair looks. Daniel comes out and starts loading stuff in the car and my mom is desperately trying to get off the phone with me. This should've been my second clue. Anyways, she hangs up and I move over to the passenger side so Daniel can drive (I'm a passenger gremlin okay I don't like to drive long distances). I buckle myself in, thinking about how long it's going to take us to get down there. Daniel gets in the car and says "what if we didn't go to Houston?" I'm thinking it's because it's been a long week and we're tired, but we still need the ring so I'm saying we need to go. Daniel comes over to my side of the car and starts giving me the same speech I've heard several times before in the fake proposals. I'm saying things like "this is fake, we need to go, come on Daniel get in the car." I get a response of "what if I had actually had the jeweler ship the ring up here while we were in Arlington, made Karl [his roommate] stay home from the office to sign for it, and it's actually been under my bed this whole time?" I'm thinking Daniel is crazy. I maintain that it's very hard for him to surprise me so I'm thinking this is a joke. The he pulls out the ring. (Mind you, I'm still buckled in). The last thing I remember thinking is that I should unbuckle my seatbelt. Everything is a blur from that point on. I vaguely remember him down on one knee. Later he told me my face gave a combo of wanting to slap him because I thought it was fake, throw up, and cry at the same time. We did not go to Houston. Instead Daniel had made 2 reservations and I got to pick. I also found out that Daniel had gone to my parents' house the day before and told all these plans to my family. And I was the one to suggest going to Houston on Friday. I thought for sure that I would know when it was happening, but no. He bamboozled me when I least expected it. Why was the floor of the parking garage relevant you may ask? That's where we had our first kiss.

The one thing you need to know about Hana is it’s almost impossible to surprise her. Making things more difficult, she knew when we were going down to Houston so I could pick up the ring. I realized that by sticking to the plan I had no chance for surprise, so I decided to improvise. I told my family, and her family, and everyone was onboard. When the ring was finished, I had the jeweler ship it to Dallas and told Hana that it was going to be done in another week. It arrived the day before we were supposed to go down to Houston, just in time. The day finally came and Hana drove over to my apartment, none the wiser. She was on the phone with her mom, and switched over to the passenger seat. I delayed driving off while her mom did her best to extricate herself from the conversation. Her mom hung up and Hana looked over at me and informed me we should head out now. However, I had other plans. I started launching into my speech, and Hana rolled her eyes. For the last couple of months I had done a number of fake proposals to keep her off guard and she naturally assumed this was another. However, I ran around to the passenger side and got down on one knee which made her a bit less sure. The look on her face was halfway between wanting to slap me and crying from joy. I kept speaking and finally got to the end, pulled out the ring box, and asked her to marry me. She was overjoyed, and so shocked that the proposal had happened that she was stunned for a moment, but she said yes! Saying you’re marrying your best friend is a bit cliche, but I can confirm that I am one of the luckiest people in the world because it’s true for me. And if you ever get the chance to surprise the love of your life who is allegedly unsurprisable, do whatever you can because it’s 100 percent worth it.