So last Wednesday, I was having what you might call a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The kind of Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day where you don't bother to get out of your pajamas and vascillate between feeling sad and weepy and whining like a petulant child. There are a lot of reasons for my Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, but I won't bore you with the details. Let's just say I was a nightmare to be around.

On a normal week, this wouldn't be a problem. I'd ride out the day in the comfort and protection of my own home, avoiding human contact and trying very hard not to spread my poison. But on this particular Wednesday, Joe and I were scheduled to go to The Dinner A'Fare (formerly known as My Girlfriend's Kitchen) with my friend Candace. Originally, we were supposed to go there the night before - Candace and her husband Derrick, me and Joe - but I had a scheduling conflict and our "date" got pushed back a night. But then, when I was so miserable, Joe was like, "Do you want to cancel?" And I said no, because Candace is a really great friend who is always there for me, and I knew how much she was looking forward to our night out.

But then it was five o'clock - time for me to get in the shower - and I didn't want to move. So then I actually DID try to wiggle out of our plans, but Candy wasn't having any of it. She said, "Lara, as miserable as you feel, that's how much I've been looking forward to tonight." So I said okay, but inside I was like, "Gee, emotional blackmail much?"

I got in the shower and when I got out I couldn't find my deodorant and for some reason this made me start crying. Like, sobbing. Crazy person crying. And poor Joe is all, "Honey, please don't cry. Honey, I'll find it for you. Please, honey, stop crying," and through my tears I'm yelling, "When I feel miserable I should just go be by myself so I don't make other people miserable and you guys won't let me and I HATE YOU FOR IT." And now I can't stop crying, so Joe calls Candy and she makes him give the phone to me and I'm crying in her ear and apologizing for being crazy, and she very soothingly says, "Take a deep breath, slow down, and then put your clothes on. Come out with me tonight. Let me give you a big hug and love on you, okay? Give me the privilege of doing that." So I say okay and I wipe my eyes and put some makeup on and get dressed. As we're heading out the door I think that this is the kind of activity that makes for fun scrapbooking, so I grab my camera. Joe goes, "Why are you bringing that?" and I tell him about the scrapbooking and he's like, "Oh."

We're running about 30 minutes late when we go pick Candy up (Derrick was working a double shift at the hospital and couldn't join us) and head to The Dinner A'Fare. If you haven't heard of it before, let me explain: it's one of those new chains where you go and put together meals that you freeze and eat later at home. They do all of the hard prep work and provide all of the ingredients and instructions. When we get there, there's a young couple already putting their meals together. The place is very colorful and set up with stainless steel prep stations. Candy's pre-ordered out dishes and we have a checklist. Dave, the co-owner, tells us where to start (blackened chicken tacos) and said that we'll have to save the fajitas for last, as they had some more prep to do for that dish. After the tacos we make some finger lickin' chicken and crispy chicken rolls. While Joe's rolling the chicken into egg roll wrappers, Candy's pacing the front of the store and calling her mother in law to check on her daughter, Catherine, for like the dozenth time. It's not like Candy to be so obsessed with her daughter, but she's made this big show of telling me how distraught Catherine was when she left for the evening.

Tabitha, Dave's wife and the main owner, seems really irritated by our presence and Candy wonders if it's because we were late. She yells at me for drinking my water near a prep station and I'm like, "Okay, I didn't know, sorry." The young couple has moved to the turkey burger station, which we also need, and now there's nothing else for us to do but wait. Finally, Dave gives me the okay to start the fajitas. So I go to the station and open the cabinet underneath and pull out my steak and my tortillas. Then I look at the ingredient list. Dave says, "Did you get everything out from under?" and I say, "Yeah, I think so," but then he reopens the cabinet and pulls out this large rectangular box wrapped in silvery paper. I'd seen the box but thought the paper looked like catering paper - it didn't register that it was for me until Dave says, "I think this has your name on it."

At first I don't realize what it is. Candy's been telling me she was making me a little present, and so I'm thinking that she somehow snuck it in there to cheer me up. But then I open the first corner and see two Swedish Fish kissing and I just knew. I start crying as I peel back the rest of the paper to reveal a shadowbox with a Scrabble board that spells out Marry Me Lara. In the corner is a little laptop made of Sculpy with the two fish kissing (Joe and I actually met at the online dating site plentyoffish.com), and under it is a cut out from a Red Robin menu (where we had our first date). There are crayons affixed to the board (we later ended up at Denny's on our first date, and colored in the placemats while waiting for cocoa), and in the opposite corner there's a picture of us that we took when we first started dating.

I turn around and at first I can't find Joe. Then I realize he's down on one knee, holding out the ring box, SHAKING. All I can think is how horrid I'd been all day. I start sobbing and hugging him and I tell him I love him and that I'm sorry, and then I'm ripping off my plastic food prep gloves so he can put the ring on me. It's more beautiful than I could've hoped for - a marquis cut heirloom (not conflict!) diamond flanked by two soft trillion cut garnets (my birthstone) in a 14k white gold setting. Then I go, "Did I say yes?" and everyone starts laughing, and that's when I look up and OH MY GOD, there's my mother and stepfather, and my friend Wendy, and I'm like, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" Mom's crying and Mark's popping champagne, and Joe's still shaking (he actually fell over when trying to stand up), and the owners and the other couple are clapping and saying congratulations. Tabitha, who'd been pretending to be mean all night, says, "Gotcha!" and tells me how from the second I walked in she was teary-eyed and wanted to hug me.

It was the most romantic thing in the world, and I was genuinely surprised. If you know me, then you know that surprising me is a feat unto itself. But also, being a writer, I kind of had high expectations for this moment. I wanted a good story. If Joe had just handed me the ring and said, "Hey, wanna get married?" I would've said yes, because I love him dearly and I know he is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. But I wouldn't have had my great story. So it meant even more to me that he spent weeks planning this proposal with Candace and my mom (especially Candace, who's known me since I was 15 and is even more of a romantic than I am), and oh, I couldn't have asked for anything better.

And that's the story of how I almost ruined my own proposal!

P.S. So of course the other thing that makes this such a great story is all of the backstage drama that I wasn't privvy to. Like, how Joe, Candace, and my mother were on the phone all day trying to decide if Joe should actually propose on a day when I was being such a miserable snot. And like how Joe thought I knew he was going to propose when I grabbed my camera. And how all of Candy's calls checking on her daughter were really to Wendy, who was wandering around the shopping center trying to figure out when the proposal was taking place. Etc.

P.P.S. The other thing I have to mention is that, throughout all of my miserable behavior, Joe never said a single unkind word to me. At the risk of sounding seriously mush-tastic, I have to say, I've never known anyone who loved and accepted me so completely and unconditionally. I'm not an easy person to get along with 50% of the time (some would say 85% of the time, but they tend to be prickly people themselves), but this man - this saintly good man - well, let me just say that I am incredibly lucky to be the one who stole his heart. Okay, I'll shut up now.