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| Hopefully I can get a refund if she tells me to BEAT IT! |
This small series
will be a break from my normal travel writing and blogging. It will attempt to document to the best of my
memory and limited writing skills the run-up to Colleen and I's recent
engagement. I apologize in advance if I
get a little sappy at times. Brent.
Top three worst feelings in the world: number one would be constipation
lasting longer than twenty-four hours; number two would be having your eyes
glued open while reruns of "The
Littlest Hobo" play on TV; and the other would have to be standing at the
boarding gate in an airport with all of the flights sold out for the next two
days to your destination and you just realized your only hope of getting to BC
to surprise-propose your girlfriend apparently just evaporated before your
eyes.
Yes, I was in full on "what-the-fuck-do-I-do-now"
mode. An hour earlier the flight to
Vancouver had 60 open seats and just like that it was sold out. Myself and a few other standby passengers
were completely befuddled and I was left to figure out what to do now. There was another flight to Vancouver in a
couple of hours but it, like everything else, was oversold. Frantically I started calling my Mom and
sister and tried to arrange anything. I
even started looking at last minute full-fare flights, but because of the high
air traffic volume they were selling for over $1500...one way! I will spare you all the ensuing drama that occurred,
but in the end I made it on to the oversold flight. Because a few of the people who were
scheduled to fly on this flight had moved up to the earlier flight that I
originally thought I was getting on, a handful of seats had opened up and I
happened to be one of the people who was blessed with this sudden turn of
fortunes. I am not a religious man, but
I can honestly say that was about as close to divine intervention or whatever
the hell it's called as I have ever experienced.
Due to the fact that we were waiting for a connecting flight
to come in to Toronto, my flight out ended up being delayed and now I was going
to be in jeopardy of missing my connecting flight from Vancouver to
Kamloops. Nothing is easy I tell
ya! Eventually we arrived in Vancouver
and I had about fifteen minutes to spare before my connecting flight to
Kamloops. Naturally it was at the other
end of the airport and I literally ran from the second I got off the plane
until I reached the next boarding gate.
When I didn't see any agents at the desk I panicked and assumed the
worst, but again the Engagement Gods (they are a real thing) were smiling down
on me and the flight was in fact delayed.
With a few minutes to spare I booked a hotel for that night in Kamloops
and tried, but ultimately failed, to get a hold of a car rental agency (not the
easiest thing to do at almost midnight in a town like Kamloops). Oh well, I would just catch a cab and arrange
the car rental the next day.
The flight to Kamloops went off without a hitch. We arrived at
close to 1am and I was (again!) greeted with some amazing luck when at the
airport there still happened to be a car rental agency employee there who had
to wait around for our flight as someone had pre-booked a car rental. I quickly procured an eco-friendly clown car
aka a Toyota Yaris and I was officially off and running in Kamloops!
That evening I crashed at some moderately priced hotel
(Riverland Inn and Suites) right along the river in Kamloops and headed to bed
knowing that the next day was going to hopefully be one of the most
nerve-wracking best days of my life!
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| I made it to Kamloops! View from my room at the Riverland Inn and Suites. Sure beats the farm fields of Ontario. |
To say I was beyond nervous when I woke up on Monday morning
would be a massive understatement. Then
again, I guess being nervous about if my plan was going to work is better than
being worried about if she would say yes!
Once I woke up, my first order of business was to call Colleen's Mom,
Brenda, and ask for her permission to marry her daughter. Due to my lack of
foresight I did not have her work number and had to message Colleen and ask for
her Mom's work number. I gave her some
bullshit excuse about a friend of mine was working in the school system in
Kamloops and was wondering what school my girlfriend's Mom worked at (shitty
excuse, I know). Somehow Colleen didn't
clue in to anything. Nothing like
leaving it to the last minute. I was
unsure if people still ask for permission or if this was just something people
do in movies, but nonetheless Brenda was super excited and for the sake of
secret-keeping it was probably a good idea that I didn't let her in on my plan
beforehand. I am not sure what I would
have done had she said no, but thankfully she is in need of some grandchildren
so she gave me her blessing.
After some communication with my accomplice Stephanie to
make sure our plan was still a go, I called Colleen and talked to her as if I
was just waking up in Ontario when in fact I was at a hotel a mere ten minutes
from where she was. Once I was convinced
that she had not caught on to my plan I told her I would talk to her later that
night when she was at the hotel with Stephanie as I had things to do. Not a complete lie; I definitely had things
to do! I spent the morning gathering
romantic supplies and basic life necessities like clothes and toiletries. As mentioned in my last blog I had to depart
Ontario in haste and therefore had no extra clothes and was majorly lacking in
toiletries. I stopped by Home Sense to
pick up some flower vases, then the liquor store for some bubbly and then
headed over to the Real Canadian Superstore for some one-stop shopping. I quickly picked up a large amount of
candles, flowers, clothes, etc, and was constantly looking over my shoulder
fearing that I would accidentally run in to the woman I was supposed to be
surprising later that evening!
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| Flower shopping. Chicks dig flowers. Or so I've been told. |
Note: I decided to do
my one-stop shopping at Real Canadian Superstore instead of Wal-Mart as I have never
heard Colleen mention it when talking about her shopping conquests. I would later learn that Colleen did in fact
go to the Superstore within an hour of when I was there! Yes, my good luck continued...
Once I gathered all of the necessary supplies I rewarded my
stealth shopping with a Grandpa Burger from A&W. Just in case Colleen happened to be craving a
member of the burger family (Momma Burger perhaps?) I made sure to eat in a
corner booth that provided ultimate spying capabilities on all of the comings
and goings of the fast food joint. With
my hunger satisfied and my rental car stocked with enough candles to light an
entire Amish settlement I headed out to Quaaout Lodge in the town of Chase
which is about an hour outside of
Kamloops.
The resort itself appeared to be almost empty, as it was
after all a Monday afternoon in late Fall.
At the check-in desk I explained to the woman that I was going to be
(hopefully!) surprising my girlfriend later that evening when she thought she
showing up for one-night spa retreat with Stephanie. Since I had booked the room, I arranged for
them to have a "fake check-in" for Stephanie and Colleen when they
arrived. Stephanie would bring Colleen
up to the room and BAM!!! I would surprise her.
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| The scene of the future proposal. |
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| And if she says no, at least I got to use these dual shower heads to give my butt the best cleaning ever! |
With things in order at the front desk, I gave part of my
stockpile of flowers to one of the waitresses in the restaurant who put them on
a table for me. I then hauled the rest
of my goodies up to the Jacuzzi Suite I had booked and set about trying to
recreate a scene from my favorite porno romantic movie. Once the flowers were arranged, the candles
laid out, my beard shaved, and my freshly purchased wardrobe applied, there was
only one thing to do: wait.
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| View from my balcony at Quaaout Lodge. Now we just a need a girlfriend to walk in the door... |
~Brentski~
Next time: The
final chapter. The proposal with full video proof!
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| Shit's getting real. Candles and flowers. |
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| Wish me luck! |
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