How not ask your girl to marry you!

First, make sure your girl doesn’t hate bugs. Second, don’t use any type of bug trying to be funny.

Picking up from “a recent post called now and forever” I will fill in the gap between how I met the love of me life, Patti me wife, and how she became said wife.

After we met Mom’s friend, Mary Harris, a member of the Church, she invited us (Dino Patti and I) to go to a church dance with her. So when the time came for the dance Dino and I went to pick them up. Patti said: “I better not go, because I have an awful headache, you can take our room mate.” I had a hard time with that, I didn’t want Patti to think I didn’t care if she went with me, I also didn’t want to embarrass her room mate with the fact that I didn’t want to take her to the dance. Not being able to think my way out of it I agreed to take the room mate.

One week later Patti agreed to go to a movie with me. Well, we didn’t get to the movie. We sat in the car and talked for a couple of hours and got to know each other.

Being close to Christmas Patti went home to family in Arizona and before she returned I was sent by the army to the Mohave desert on maneuvers. We were testing tanks in battle situations in the desert. We were down there for almost 4 months. I was able to come back for a weekend, a Saturday morning thru Sunday. Saturday afternoon I took Patti for a walk along the ocean on the sea wall. I wasn’t able to take luggage and was in my army dress uniform. We were talking and walking and I suddenly wanted a kiss (it would have been our first kiss) I leaned over to kiss her and she ducked and I fell into the ocean, wet up to my knees. We both were laughing and I was hoping my dress greens and shoes would dry ok.

When I got back to San Francisco at the end of April I bought an orchid corsage and went to the bank where Patti worked to take her to lunch. I sat down in the lobby to wait for her to come down the elevator and a teller come over to see if she could help me, I said no, I’m waiting for Patti Little, I want to take her to lunch. I guess she let Patti know I was waiting for her. Patti came out of the elevator and walked right by me and out the door causing me to run after her. Well, I took her to lunch and gave her the orchid and when I dropped her off off at the bank I got my first kiss and crushed the orchid.

I was being released from the army in two weeks and I told Dino I was going to ask Patti to marry me. Mistake number 1, he told Mary and Mary told Patti. I went to the jewelry store and ordered a special ring set.

I picked it up the afternoon, after I was discharged. As I was leaving the jewelry store, I saw a display of bugs with jewels for eyes and on their wings and I thought, “that would fit in the ring box”, BIG mistake number 2.

Several things are so wrong here. 1. I had no clue how to ask her to marry me, I was just a farm boy and had never witnessed a guy asking a girl to marry him. 2. I did not know my friend, my confidant, my best buddy, couldn’t keep a secret. 3. I did not know that Patti hated bugs. 4. This is not the time to try to be funny.

I put the ring in my pocket, the bug in the ring box and walked in and said Patti, I have something for you and handed her the ring box. She opened it and screamed. Recovering quickly I pulled the ring out of my pocket and ask her to marry me. She said, and I quote, “ I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth”. I hesitated,,,,,,,then said well then you keep the ring because if you won’t marry me then I have no use for it, and fled.

Dino got out of the army the same day I did and invited me to Colorado to his family farm. While there I wrote to Patti every day, sometimes sending song lyrics that showed her how I felt about her and how much I loved her.

The rest of the story is for the next blog😎