We ended up going ice skating that evening at a rink less than a mile from my house. Boy, did we feel old. We were the oldest people on the ice. There were parents waiting for their children in the snack bar area who were older than us, but we were definitely a generation or two removed from those who were skating.
After barely an hour, I told Russ we needed to leave. My head was pounding from all the hip hop music (or whatever genre the music was) playing at full blast in the ice rink. It was still really early, though, only around 8 p.m. or so. So we didn't want to call the evening to an end already. I suggested we go back to my house and play a game of Scrabble. Russ thought this was an incredible idea. I'd never seen anyone act so enthused about the prospect of playing Scrabble before. He had his ice skates off and was ready to take off before I'd even had my skates unlaced.
On the way back to my house, Russ bypassed the two gas stations that he'd mentioned he had to stop at that night since his truck was almost empty. When I pointed this out to him, he said he'd stop on his way home, but he really wanted to eat some brownies.
When we arrived, I went about fixing up a plate of brownies while Russ was setting up the Scrabble board. I could hear him turning over a bunch of tiles. I thought he was cheating. After all, he usually beat me four out of five games we played. But then the timer went off on the brownies, so I stopped being concerned with the prospect that he was cheating.
As I was bringing the brownies over to the table from the kitchen, Russ told me to set the brownies down and said we "needed to talk." Well, most women know what "we need to talk" signifies. It usually signifies the break up of a relationship. My first thought was everything had been going so well, how could I not have seen this break up coming?
Russ then led me over to the kitchen table where he removed a bag that had been covering up the Scrabble board. He claims he asked me aloud to marry him. I have no recollection of him speaking. I only saw "MARRY ME" on the Scrabble board. Needless to say I was stunned.
Also needless to say, I said "YES."
And I finally learned why Russ had been so edgy all day. He'd decided to propose on 12 Sept and had given himself until that day to ask me to marry him. He hadn't figured out how to ask until I suggested the game of Scrabble. That's when he knew he could use the tiles to propose. What he hadn't realized until that time was that there are only two "M's" in the Scrabble bag. He would have spelled out "will you marry me" if it hadn't taken him so long to find the two M's.
I can't remember who won the game that night, but the brownies were really good.
