The Nest

It all started the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Every year, the weekend before Thanksgiving, Mark’s old scout troop holds a Thanksgiving campout.  All the families are invited, they make turkey, stuffing, potatoes...the whole shebang.  Well, this year Mark told me that we had to help Andy (see 'how we met') teach the kids how to use the handheld GPS units.  (Unlike Garmin or TomTom, you don't get business addresses and roadmaps.  You just get coordinates, like you were using a regular old compass.  Needless to say, this takes some training.)

So, I grudgingly got out of bed and took a shower.  When I got out of the shower, Mark was gone and there was an envelope taped to my bathroom mirror.  I took it down, and inside there was a note.  It said to get ready, eat some breakfast, and go to the flower shop on the corner where I should tell them my name and Mark would meet me 'shortly'.  I was a bit flustered by the wording, because I needed to dry my hair, dress in about three layers due to the cold weather, and eat breakfast, and I was supposed to meet him 'shortly'?!?  So, I took my time getting ready and figured he'd just have to wait for me, whether he liked it or not.  (At this point in the story, he likes to interject that he made me breakfast - he heated me up a cinnamon roll and left a yogurt smoothie out for me.  Who says chivalry is dead?)

 After I had finished my breakfast, I packed up everything I needed for the day at camp and set off for the flower shop.  When I got there, I noticed that Mark was nowhere to be found.  I went into the shop, and there was already a lady at the counter ahead of me.  Apparently, she was picking up flowers for an anniversary party and they were all wrong.  She was very nice, though, and she let the girl behind the counter stop fixing the flowers to get my order.  I told her my name, and she went to a back room.  She came out carrying two dozen red roses!  She also had another envelope for me.  The lady waiting on her flowers said something priceless, too...she said that I should be happy because if you don't get flowers before you're married, you'll never get flowers after you're married.  I laughed, and thanked them both.

Then it was back to the car to fuss over my roses and read the next letter.  This one said to go to the Kent State University (Mark's college) library and find a specific book.  It was the Boy Scout Handbook...of course.  So I was off to Kent, about a half hour drive from where we live.  At this point, I was fairly flustered, trying not to think of where this little adventure might take me.  When I got to the library, it was pretty easy to find the computer lab so I could look up the book, but finding the elevators was another story.  I had never been in this library before, and there were no nicely placed maps, so I wandered around for a few minutes before finding them and heading up to the book.  As I neared the book in question, I saw a large ribbon hanging off a shelf.  Next to the library book, I found a scrapbook that Mark had made for me!  He did a really good job, too.  I read through it, and in the back page I found two CDs he made for me, and another letter.

When I got back to my car, I realized that I had forgotten my CD player at home (I have an old beater of a car with just a radio and tape player), so I went to the Kent State bookstore to buy one because I just couldn't wait to listen to the CDs.  After that errand was done, I read the next note.  It told me to go to Youngstown State University (my old college) and find a friend of ours who works at my old dorm.  During the hour-long drive down there, I listened to the CDs Mark had made.  As I listened, an idea struck me that just felt right.  It hit me that this scavenger hunt would take me all over Youngstown, then I’d end up at the camp where we’d be going that night anyway, and Mark would propose to me!  I tried not to get too wrapped up in this scenario, just in case I was wrong…but I couldn’t help it!  Anyhow, I got to Youngstown State and tracked down our friend.  He was waiting for me with another letter, and the first stuffed animal that Mark had ever gotten for me.  I knew he was thinking of the same ending to my adventure, but neither of us said anything because we didn’t want to jinx it.

So, on to the next stop.  This note told me to go see another of our friends who was working at a building on campus.  I drove over there and was met by our friend, a locket, and another note.  The locket was one that Mark had gotten me years ago (at the time I’m writing this, we’ve been dating for almost seven years).  I broke the little loop that held the locket onto the chain.  When I got the locket back, it was fixed and Mark had put a picture of us in it for me.  The next note, however, was rather strange.  It was a set of GoogleMap-style directions, and it simply said ‘Gazebo?’  I had no idea where this place was, and my friend was no help there, either.  So, I went back to my car and started out on the directions.

After getting a little lost, I finally reached my destination.  It was a flower garden in Youngstown.  I had never been there before, so I didn’t know that there was a big gazebo on the property where people usually get married in the summer.  Instead, I headed for the first gazebo-shaped structure I saw, which happened to be the gift shop.  I went in, bought some stuff, and asked the lady at the checkout if there were any other gazebos around.  She thought for a minute, then pointed me in the right direction.  She asked me why I was looking for it on such a gloomy day, so I told her the story of my day thus far.  She just gushed over how romantic all this was.

After a stop at my car, which I later found out was being watched to make sure I had gone to the right place, I went out to the gazebo.  When I got there, I found a five-foot-tall balloon man with a Big Lebowski t-shirt on (The Big Lebowski is my favorite movie!), bowling shoes at his feet, and another note.  This one said: “What is round and black and has three holes?  The balloon man knows.  Meet me there for a game.  Love, Mark”.  I knew he meant for me to go to the bowling alley where we first met.  Before I left for the bowling alley, I brought the balloon man back into the building to show the lady at the gift shop.  Everyone in the place was excited for me, and we were all thinking the same thing.  They wished me good luck, and I headed off to ‘meet Mark’ at the bowling alley.

By this time, I had read that he would ‘meet me there’ at the end of each letter, so I didn’t expect him to be there at all…and I wasn’t disappointed.  I did, however, find two of our friends there waiting for me.  We bowled one game, during which I told them the story of the day so far.  After the game, they gave me yet another note.  This one, which is my absolute FAVORITE to explain, told me to go to the place where I got rugburn.

Now, before you freak out, I have to tell you the story of the rugburn.  Shortly after I met Mark, he totaled my car.  The very next night, we went out bowling with the couple that introduced us.  Andy was driving that night.  In Youngstown, there is a five-way intersection at routes 7, 626 and 32.  It was a dark and stormy night, so the roads were pretty slick.  While making a turn at that intersection, Andy ran straight into the pole.  His car had cloth seats, and neither Mark nor I had our seatbelts on in the back seat, so when we hit the pole my right cheekbone hit the back of Andy’s headrest.  This caused an abrasion which, for lack of a better term, we called ‘rugburn’.  See?  That story probably wasn’t NEARLY as bad as you thought it would be, was it?

Anyways, so I went to the pole we hit that night, and at the base of the pole was a bag.  In the bag was a four-pack of ginger beer, which was our beverage of choice back at the time of the accident, and another note.  This one told me to go to where we were teaching GPS one day at camp.  I figured that this was going to be it, so I got really excited.

I drove to camp and parked in their little parking lot.  The note had said something about looking in the rafters, so I thought it was probably the BB gun shack where we had started the GPS course, but I guessed that it could also mean the pavilion right next to the parking lot where the day had ended up.  I decided to check the pavilion first, since it was closer to the parking lot and it might save me some walking.  I went up to the pavilion and saw a few of our friends waiting up there.  I said hi to them, and most of them said hi back.  There was one exception.  Our friend Tim simply walked up to me and said, “I think you should be at the BB shack now.”  I gave him a funny look, told him it was good to see him too, and that the BB shack was my next stop.  Laughing, I walked down the hill to the BB shack.

As I approached, I saw Andy sitting in the BB shack (it’s just a tiny pavilion with a little closet for the BB guns), and he was playing with something.  He looked up and saw me coming, so he quickly put the thing he was fiddling with on a rafter and hid in the little closet.  Maybe he hoped I hadn’t seen him.  When I got to the shack, I found that the thing in the rafters was a GPS with directions for me to follow.  Just for the heck of it, I knocked on the door of the closet.  I started laughing when I heard Andy reply “there’s no one here!”  He then told me that the GPS was set to jump to the next point as I hit each one, so I trekked off in the direction it told me to go.  After wandering for a few minutes, I found myself back at the original pavilion.

I walked up to the pavilion, and I just knew that this was it!  Mark was standing in the middle of the pavilion, and there were candles everywhere.  On the picnic table behind him was a beautiful crystal vase with two gold-dipped roses.  I hugged and kissed him, and he asked if I’d had a fun time that day.  I told him that I had…then I just looked at him expectantly.  I had been anticipating this moment all day long.  I really thought that he was going to propose then.  When he didn’t say or do anything else for a few minutes, I started searching in his pockets for the little box.  He stopped me and apologized, telling me that he had just wanted me to have a fun day.  I smiled sadly, then helped him clean up the candles so we could move on to his troop and dinner.  Before driving to the other side of camp, I did make a stop at the ladies’ room, where I proceeded to cry for a good 15 minutes or so.  I really did love the vase and the roses, it’s just that I was expecting…something else.

But, I pulled myself together, and I met Mark over where his troop was staying.  I did mope for a while, and there were a few more tears involved.  He later told me that he almost proposed right then because he felt so bad about upsetting me.  In retrospect, I’m glad he didn’t.  This way, it makes a much better story.

So we had dinner, some of our friends showed up to hang out, and then it was time for the campfire.  Every year after dinner the troop puts on a campfire with various skits and songs to entertain their families.  The skits were going as usual, and then the MC, Cody, announced the Swami skit.  Mark was the Swami that night, and Andy was his announcer.  The basic idea of this skit is that the Swami tells people’s fortunes by smelling their shoes.  It’s actually pretty funny when done right.  So, Mark had a kid from the troop pick four people out of the audience to have their fortunes told.  He chose two moms, our friend Jeremy, and me.  We went up and formed a line so he could tell our fortunes.  The first lady walked up to him, and he asked for her shoe.  She didn’t think he was serious, but she finally did give him her shoe.  He sniffed it, then took a look at the laces.  He noted that the laces were long, and so she would have a long life.  He then handed her back her shoe, and Andy helped her put it back on.  It was pretty muddy that night, so no one wanted to walk around without their shoes on.  The second lady came up, and Mark sniffed her shoe.  He told her that she would come into money soon.  He then pointed into the distance and asked, “hey, what’s that?”  When she looked away, he tossed a dollar and some change into her shoe, then handed it back to her when she turned back to him.  She was amused as she removed the money from the shoe so she could put it back on.

Up next was Jeremy.  Mark took his shoe and sniffed it.  He made a face and coughed, making the audience laugh.  He told Jeremy that he’d be going on a long trip in the near future, then he threw Jeremy’s shoe out into the woods.  Jeremy stood and just looked at Mark, thinking it was some sort of joke.  Mark told him to get off stage, so Jeremy began hopping off to find his shoe.  Finally, it was my turn.  I gave Mark my shoe and watched as he sniffed it.  He told the audience that he couldn’t quite get a reading from it, and he’d have to try something else.  He then licked the side of the shoe.  Everyone groaned, but it wasn’t quite the reaction he was looking for, so he told them that he still couldn’t get a good reading.  He then proceeded to turn the shoe upside-down and lick the bottom of it.  He then spit out some mud and leaves.  This definitely got the reaction that he was going for, so he handed me back my shoe and told me that I would find great love and a long, happy life.  Then he told me to get off the stage, too.  I turned to walk away, and I got about three steps away before he stopped me, got down on one knee and proposed.  He later told me that he was afraid I’d say no since he put me through so much earlier in the day.  I did accept, but I did NOT kiss him until he had brushed his teeth!