Mike Fireball's Thing Where He Writes Stuff

So I asked Karen to marry me Sunday. See photographic evidence.

It took like 5 years to work up the nerve to kiss each other. A lot of you had to listen to a lot more of those 5 years than you would have liked. Now, a mere year and a half (almost to the day) after we finally did, I found, ironically, that proposing to a woman was a thousand times easier than pop culture has made it out to be. No rehearsing the question out loud, or in front of a mirror. Just me feeling awesome and wanting this woman to stick around forever.

Karen was going away for the weekend, for her sister's bachelorette party. On the same weekend I happened to be getting paid for a load of overtime thanks to Tropical Storm Fay. So I told her I'd take her out to a really nice dinner Sunday after I picked her up at the airport.

It was the perfect time to pick out a ring.

I had her give me some ideas of what she liked in rings. She didn't go I want this exact one! She's not that girl, thank God, but it was a huge help, because I was able to find something myself based on features of different ones she liked.

I picked her up at the airport.

Late.

No, I was on time. Her flight was early. It ended up working perfectly, because she thought I might have been planning to propose at the airport. That's where we had our first kiss. I didn't tell her I was going to do it this weekend. She just had some theories.

Her other theory was that I might do it at dinner. I didn't, but I had told her that I had an idea for dessert, but it was a surprise.

She eventually ends up guessing that dessert was a pineapple float at Disney World, because she loves them, and we hadn't gotten one last time we were there. I told her we'd get dessert and stay for the fireworks.

And she bought it! After thinking I'd propose at the airport and at dinner, she was out of guesses.

We ended up running into our friend Casey at freaking Disney World.

Well, that wasn't too much of a shock. She works there — but at Epcot, not the Magic Kingdom. So it was still a wonderful longshot.

We run into Casey and another girl she was with about 15 minutes before I was going to propose. I knew it would probably be awkward for them, but I made sure not to flinch. Which is a huge accomplishment, because I'm usually terrible at keeping a straight face when there are surprises involved. I was amazed I even got Karen into Disney without her suspecting anything. I wasn't about to blow it now.

Everything went perfectly. The fireworks started, and she was excited because we hadn't seen them in a while.

She loves the Wishes fireworks. Loves them. She has the song on CD.

So about a minute in, I got down on one knee and pulled out the ring.

She couldn't speak. She just nodded and went MMHMM MMHMM MMHMM.

It was perfect.

And running into Casey was worth it, because she had her camera!