Carl had arranged to take me to see a live play, "Can A Woman Make A Man Lose His Mind" along with some of our other coupled friends for Sweetest Day. I schemed up my countersurprise from the moment he handed me the tickets (for safe keeping).
We'd often discussed my ideal engagement, in which we BOTH would wear an engagement ring - symbolizing our mutual respect for our impending commitment. Unbeknownst to him, I'd purchased his engagment ring and was trying to come up with the most sentimental/memorable way to give it to him. I figured that since Carl simply loves to be the center of attention - I'd try and do it with as much fanfare as possible. I knew I'd want to do it amoungst his closest friends, so I plotted to spring it on him that night. I contacted the stage directors, told them of my plan and they liked the idea. They agreed to help me execute my surprise during the intermission of the play. In speaking with my sister-in-law (2 B) Rachel Langs, about my plans, she suggested I try to contact our local news stations to see if they'd perhaps cover the proposal as a special interest story of some kind. I contacted the local news and to my good fortune, Channel 2 agreed to cover the story - but they didn't contact me to tell me so until we were in the car enroute to the show! Once we arrived, I got my friend to ditch her guy and come help me call around to find someone who'd be able to video tape the show. [My babysitting niece and sister came through with flying colors!]
Next we made contact with the show's directors to meet them face to face and finalize the details. My friend, Tameka Pass and I then met up with our guys and took our seats. They were so busy hamming it up they didn't even notice our running about. At intermission, the cast asked everyone to remain in their seats for a special presentation. They announced that for the first time ever, they were holding a door prize give-away to the person sitting in seat #507. Now the problem was that although we'd purchased our seats in a block - we'd all mingled ourselves amoungst our row. So his friend, Terrance Covington, knowing nothing of my plot, stood up - to my dismay. I waved the host down to tell him of the error. He then asked was Terrance the ticket holder for that seat. Luckily Terrance had to sit down. I jumped up and started walking to the front, to avoid any further mix-ups. When I reached the stage, they asked if I had an escort. As if on cue, carl jumps up and RUNS to the front of the theatre. Once on stage, he swaggered over to the emcey to help me claim our prize. The emcee asked our names and handed me back my ticket for me to share with Carl the details of prize we'd won. I made mention of our unofficial engagement and pulled out his ring - his mouth dropped! I then got down on one knee and proposed...he was SPEECHLESS. When he finally spoke, all he could say was..."Wow! That's nice!" For the rest of the night, he enjoyed his 'celebrity status' receiving "Congrats" from everyone. And to top it all off, we were featured on the 10 o'clock news that evening and we have the moment captured forever on taped!
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