The Misunderstanding

I can say with a decent amount of certainty that I, like most, have at least a few things in my life that I wish would of happened differently. Not necessarily regrets, more like a sense of wondering how things would of unfolded if a different decision was made or maybe a different time and place was chosen.

The year was 1991. I had graduated from high school a few years before that and I was working part time at a yogurt shop. I had been dating my ex for about 8 months when he came into the shop one day. He had never been in there before, so I was both shocked and happy to see him. He was dressed up in some of his finest early 90's attire...one of his colorful vests, a tie, and his patent leather dress shoes. He was also wearing his long London Fog raincoat unbuttoned halfway with one hand tucked in front. Waving at me with his free hand and smiling, he moved into the long line of people waiting to be served. We were very busy like usual so I couldn't stop working to visit with him right away, but I kept glancing at him, smiling and mouthing things like, "I love you" and "What are you doing here?" He wouldn't mouth anything back, he just smiled and winked at me raising a finger as if to signal "Wait a minute."

After about 10 minutes, the line had shrunk substantially and only a few more people were in line in front of my ex. Suddenly, two police vehicles pulled up outside and four officers piled out, entering the shop. Two of them started silently signaling to the already seated customers to leave the shop, while the other two approached the line of people waiting to be served. At the same time this was happening, two more officers came up from the back of the shop and joined the two by the customer line. As my manager started moving my coworkers and I to the back of the store, I noticed one of the officers grab my ex's free arm and demand he come out of the line which made him react by pulling away. This caused the officers to draw their weapons on him. One of the officers yell out at him, "Stay where you are Sir! Slowly take your hand out of your coat please!" My ex glanced over at me with tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry." He mouthed. I could tell he was confused and embarrassed at the same time. He complied and slowly removed his hand from the front of his raincoat to reveal a dozen long stem red roses he had bought for me. "There just roses." He said to the officers.

One of them told my ex to put the roses on the table. The officer then proceeded to sift through them with the end of his revolver. One of the other officers grabbed my ex and threw him up against the wall, patting him down and asking him if he had any weapons of any kind on him. I was crying, watching the whole thing from the entrance to the back of the store. My manager wouldn't let me go to him even though I told her who he was. She just gave me a look of disbelief and said, "You need to stay here if you want to keep your job!" I was young and had never been fired from a job before so I stayed where I was and yelled at the officers, asking them what they were doing to my boyfriend and why, but they just ignored me. While patting him down, the officer pulled out a little black box from my ex's front pants pocket. As they opened it, exposing an engagement ring, my ex began trying to grab in back from them yelling, "Thanks a lot for ruining my proposal!!"

Yes! My ex had come to the yogurt shop that day dressed in his best with a dozen long stem red roses to propose to me while I was at work. The ring he brought with him had a very special story behind it too. When my ex was 11 years old, he found the ring by the curb on the side of the road while walking home from school one day. Having no idea what to do with it, he decided to bring it home and give it to his mother. She went and got it cleaned, reset, and even bought a little box to put it in. Then she went to him and told him she would hold onto it for him for safe keeping and when he felt he had found his true love, he could ask her for it. Such a sweet story attached to such a beautiful ring! This made things even worse when the proposal went sour!

The police tried to apologize, but the damage had already been done. Why did this happen? Who could of taken a situation like this and misinterpreted it so severely? As it turned out, my manager, having never seen him before, thought he was about to hold up the shop so she called the police and let the other officers in through the back door. She was only doing what she was trained to do in the event of a potential robbery, but she didn't know the "robber" was my boyfriend coming to propose to me. I guess that would explain her look of disbelief and shock when I told her he was there for me!

What a huge misunderstanding! We sat at a table together after the officers left and tried to console each other over what had just happened. We ended up going ahead with the engagement that day and even had a daughter together later on, but we never did get married. Do I regret the experience? The jury is still out on that one; but I will have to say that I, and most people I've told the story to, believe it's DEFINITELY cringeworthy if nothing else! I can laugh about it now, but this engagement is one of those things in my life that has me wondering what the outcome would of been with a different decision, place, and/or time. Perhaps I wouldn't be as strong as I am now. Maybe I wouldn't have my lovely, beautiful daughter in my life without this crazy freak of an engagement. I know one thing is for certain...I get a good mixture of laughs and wide-eye stares when I tell it at get togethers and parties!