After narrowly escaping an objectively not-very-good second date, Sam--in a desperate attempt--proposed cooking dinner together. South Bend runs a good farmer's market, so Laura proposed biking to the market for fresh ingredients (for those keeping score, biking to a farmer's market and cooking dinner together counts as an objectively good date). One problem: Sam doesn’t own a bike. Liz (Club Balla proprietor) let Sam borrow hers for the trip. What follows is an oral history of that market trip: Sam: There are two interesting facts about Liz's bike. First, it's a racing-style bike. The handlebars come way out, so that your hands are in front of the wheel. Second interesting fact: the brakes don't work. At all. When Laura and I came to the first stop sign, I pulled the brakes and kept barreling toward the road. The only way to stop in time was to bail off the bike. This, I later realized, was a red flag. Laura: On the way down I was pretty good about giving Sam advance notice for the various zigs and zags of the bike path. On the way back...different story. We got to a downhill ramp that ended with a zig-zag of 90-degree turns at a waist-high concrete wall. As I jabbered away at Sam, I slowed down to just clear the turn...and then realized Sam was speeding down right behind me... S: At a certain point, maybe halfway down the ramp, I realized I was going to hit the wall. I made peace with it quickly. About 3 inches from hitting the wall, I suddenly remembered my hands! L: I turned around and his hand was dripping blood. The first thing he said was to tell future generations that he didn’t fall off the bike. S: I didn’t fall off the bike. Now my hands are running blood, but remember that bad second date? I did, and I pretended like everything was fine. L: V manly. But I felt terrible. And to top it off, when we made it back to my house I couldn't find band-aids anywhere--mortified. S: I told her I didn’t mind, that I would just go bleed out in the lawn.

The wall is where I wanted to propose. Crash or no, it remained an objectively good date. If I were a different, less funny person, I would say that the wall is where Laura crashed into my heart. But I have more respect for you and for myself than to do that. The scene: it's spring in South Bend, 4 degrees outside, and we’re training for the ND Holy Half marathon. So every Sunday we went on long runs. This provided good cover, because the wall was along one of our favorite running routes. I need to back up. A lot of people helped plan the proposal. My original idea was to crouch behind the wall, lure Laura out, and leap out at her with a ring. And that sounds like a bad idea because it is. With the help of Megan, Shayla & Paul, Emerson, Joel & Shelby, and Liz, we concocted Project MATE (Murray's Awesome Tale of Engagement). The plan was to run to the wall with Laura. The wall would be decorated with a series of letters that I wrote for Laura, with little bouquets hanging in between (the letters, mind you, were always part of the plan, so I had at least one good idea). The ring would be at the end of the wall. On Palm Sunday, just before 4pm, I set off to Laura's for our run. Back up again. I had just gotten back from a workshop in Colombia and was...como se disce...very sick. I'm chugging DayQuil in a desperate attempt to manage my cough. Have you ever run while sick? Terrible. Run before proposing? Terribler. So running while sick before proposing? But we made it to the wall, where Laura missed the big ‘LAURA→’ sign we put up because she was too focused on asking me why I was acting so weird. When Laura saw the letters, she stared at them. (L: I was processing the moment!) I asked if she thought the letters were for a different Laura. As we made our way toward the wall, there was a good mix of tears and laughs. At the wall, I got down on one knee, asked Laura the question… And she said, `YES!!’