Cliche Courtship

Cliché Courtship

“Cry me a river!” I spat, as I threw my dinner plate at him. I had thought about hitting him over the head with an iron skillet, but I had none.

“Don’t be so defensive!” he screamed back at me.

“I’m NOT being defensive” was my well constructed reply.

We stared at each other for what seemed an eternity, then we laughed like hyenas. Well, not exactly like hyenas, their laugh is really a modified bark; but we did laugh obnoxiously.

“I’ll get the broom,” he quietly intoned, and went to fetch it.

I trained him well. He would never consider me his ball and chain. I had his proverbial balls on my chain and I wielded them like an Amazon. Just call me freaking Xena!

After way too much time, he came back with the broom and cleaned up the shards of glass.

“You missed a spot,” I teased, and he glared at me. If looks could kill, I would have been dead.

After the mess was cleaned to my satisfaction, he sat on the couch beside me. As he took my left foot in his hands to rub it, I noticed he was not talking much. He had that far-away look in his eyes, and he wasn’t doing a very good job with my foot rub.

“Penny for your thoughts!”

“Honey, you’re going to need a whole roll of quarters”

Uh-Oh, I thought. This could be trouble!

He took a deep breath, and began.

“Do you remember Rebecca, from the office?”

“Uh huh…” I shakily spoke, fear rising up in my esophagus like lava.

“Well, you see…” He looked down and seemed to have a keen interest in my left big toe.

“Um… Rebecca just recently broke up with her boyfriend…”

Oh here it goes, I braced myself for what I knew was coming.

“And… And the reason they broke up…” He turned his head away from me, his chin was trembling and his eyes were welling up.

“Oh out with it already!” I urged him. I figured if the news was as bad as I knew it was going to be, he might as well let it rip.

He continued, after honking his oversized nose into a Kleenex.

“The reason they broke up, was… He had a fear of commitment. They had been dating, even longer than we have, and he never proposed, or anything.”

“Um... And why are you telling me this?” I asked him, instinctively handing him another tissue. Four years of living together, and we were like a symbiotic organism, always anticipating each others needs.

“I’m telling you this, because I don’t want that to happen to us.” He reached into his robe pocket and pulled out a distinctively shaped box. I immediately began sobbing.

“Will you marry me?” he offered, tears streaming down his ruggedly handsome face.

“Yes, of course I will, you doofus!”

I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him passionately, then reached down and pinched his butt for good measure.