So I knew early on that Courtney essentially had two families. No big deal. As it became clear what direction we were heading it occurred to me that 2 families meant I had 2 dads to ask “the question” to. You know when your parents say things to you like “life just isn’t fair”? This is the kind of thing that should serve as exhibit A for that statement.
Now I had established one thing in my head long before I had even bought the ring. There was no chance that I was even hinting at this to Courtney’s Mom. In fact I was so sure that if she got wind of this at all, any chance at surprise would be out the window. I actually had to plan my phone calls to ask “the question” for the last minute because of this. Let’s just say, keeping secrets isn’t her strength. I present this video as an example of what an interaction between Courtney and her mom would be if her mom knew.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orPlK0wlYMQ&playnext=1&list=PL803B45264FFF8246
(sorry you have to follow the link, they wouldn’t let me embed it)
Recently we were driving in the car, and she voluntarily said “so when do you want us to give your birthday present to you? Now or later?” that would be fine and all, except, my Birthday isn’t for another month. This was followed up by, “You could wear it…um…oops.” Yeah, not a lot of drama in what I am getting for my birthday!
This is exactly why she wasn’t going to know until the last possible moment. If she knew before, she would be chit chatting away on the phone with Courtney about who knows what, and then “accidentally” say something like:
“So when do you want to go look at wedding venues?”
“um…who is getting married?”
“oh!...um…er…I gotta go!” –click-
Yeah…need to avoid this. But first things first…”the question”
I don’t know exactly when it occurred to me, but at some point it occurred to me that I really didn’t know what “the question” really was. I also admit that I googled “Jayne Eyre marriage blessing” looking for some old out of date scene involving some Old English and strangely dressed people to make fun of the situation, but after watching about 15 seconds of one video, I passed out, so I elected to NOT torture you with such nonsense. The problem wasn’t asking the question, I just had no idea what that question was! Am I asking for a blessing? That sounds awkward and a very 18th century. And how does that conversation go?
“Hi, I would like to get your blessing to ask Courtney to marry me.”
“um…ok…you are blessed.”
“ah, great! Thanks! So…what do you think about El Nino?
That didn’t sound very fun…
So maybe I was asking for permission. Isn’t that what they do in the movies? But permission also seems a bit antiquated. Permission felt like they had control over the answer Courtney would give. I understand that it is more of a courtesy, but can’t I be courteous without being awkward and strange?
“Hi, I would like to ask your permission to ask Courtney to marry me.”
“HA!, not a chance.”
“oh. Um…please?”
“nope”
“do you accept bribes?”
See, that just had too much potential for my fragile state of mind to be taken advantage of. So what was I supposed to do? Just inform them? Write a press release? I mean after all that is basically what I was doing right? It was just a prequel to the actual question popping. What I settled on was basically the shot gun approach.
“I would like to ask for your permission and blessing to ask Courtney to marry me, and any advice you might have for us going forward?”
See, this basically allows them to choose which one of those things they want to address and move forward without any awkwardness, or at least as little as possible, and still have the unwritten protocol of making contact with the dad prior to asking the BIG question.
So I knew I was going to do this a good month and a half before I actually asked Courtney to marry me. I was going to propose in Washington D.C. by the reflecting pond at sunset. BAM!
We were going on a 2 week trip with my family and D.C was Day 1. Get this ring out of my suitcase and on to her finger asap, so I didn’t so something stupid like lose it. It was also because I could then make the “dad” calls the day before we left, and leave it to them to tell the moms, and with any luck, by the time the mom’s even knew, so would Courtney. This was brilliant! How could this go wrong! Well, let’s continue…
I called Rick first. I knew he was on a business trip to San Francisco, so I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about him answering while sitting right next to Marie. Now what I figured out was that it didn’t matter how comfortable you are with your soon to be wife’s dad, it doesn’t matter how comfortable you are on the phone, and it doesn’t matter how confident you are in the outcome of the phone call. Dialing the numbers is nerve racking. Mind chaos: ok, so here we go. Dial the number, look at the number in the phone, check the number, yup…it’s correct. All you have to do is push talk…what’s that? A cobweb up in the top corner of the living room? I better clean that up. This phone call can wait. Ok, that was important, been meaning to do that for some time. Ok. Dial number. Yup the number is right. Push call. Ok. Pushed call…-ring-…holy crap it’s ringing! What on earth am I doing! Hang up now! Quick, no you can’t hang up; he will see your number! -ring- ok breathe, no big deal!, it’s just Rick! -ring- nope. This is a big deal…gonna pass out…feeling a little woozy here…-rin…”This is Rick Kivela.”
Ah. The moment had arrived. All I had to do was state me pre-constructed introduction and carefully crafted question and let him do the rest. I could hear airport announcements in the background which didn’t concern me cause I knew he was away on business.
“Hey Rick, this is Jon, Courtney’s boyfriend. I was actually planning on asking Courtney to marry me while we are on this upcoming trip to the east coast. I wanted to touch base with you before we left and ask for your permission and blessing as well as any advice you might have for us going forward?”
Done….I got it out, I sounded sophisticated, calm, confident, normal. Success! Now I just wait for him to do his part of this ritual and I can move on to part 2…
“I’m sorry. Who is this again?”
MIND CHAOS: oh crap. He didn’t hear any of that and besides that he doesn’t even know who I am! FAIL FAIL FAIL! Abort mission! No, no, he is at the airport and couldn’t hear…just ask again. It’s not that hard you retard!
See, what I forgot in all the preparation for just asking the question was that I forgot Rick likely did not have my number on his business phone, because he would normally call from his home phone should he need to get a hold of me or Courtney. He didn’t have any caller ID to assist in this critical identification process that I took for granted.
“It’s Jon Prebish, um…Courtney’s boyfriend?”
I kind of hoped that did the trick because if it didn’t, I really didn’t know where to go from there. I mean what do I say then without sounding condescending and just plain rude? And that isn’t a good way to start the permission conversation. “You know, the guy who always shows up at your house with your daughter?” that just sounds like I am being an ass no matter how genuine it is! Luckily…he heard me the second time.
So I blurted out my prepared mini speech again. I didn’t really have any expectations for this conversation. I didn’t know if this would be a 2 minute conversation, or a 30 minute conversation. I kind of assumed if it went longer than 10 minutes I was probably going to be in lawyer mode presenting my case as to why I am worthy and that can’t be a good sign. After all, the 60 seconds it took for me to establish who I was and what I wanted was more than I was comfortable with already!
Needless to say, It went way past 10 minutes, and I didn’t have to go into lawyer mode. Rick took the advice part of my prepared mini speech and ran with it. If I didn’t know better, he had prepared for this! He gave me financial advice, marital advice, and explained how Marie and him were really happy cause they could see how happy Courtney was (they apparently forgot about the day I bought the ring…) and all in all congratulated me and the conversation was over.
-whew-
It occurred to me afterwards that if I was going to ask for advice I probably should be surprised if advice was given. I remember the big picture of what was said, but I probably should of taken notes. My brain was too busy thinking “this is going well” and then it somehow reminded itself that I had to do it all over again.
Now on to call Greg. Now I called Rick first because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be completely caught off guard, pending airline announcements at the time of important introductions, and so I figured that would go smoothly. At the time of making this call, I had been to KC once. Remember that trip to KC? Yeah, that was it. So I was pretty sure this was going to be a bit of a shocker for him. So in some way, I felt like maybe I could just plow over this before he knew what had just happened. So I didn’t get as antsy for this phone call because I was half way home.
Greg answered.
“Hi Mr. White, This is Jon, Courtney’s boyfriend down in Houston.”
This time I paused to make sure he knew who I was.
“Oh. Well, hey there.”
I’m pretty sure he was expecting me to deliver some bad news or something terrible had happened, after all why in the world would I be calling him?! I gave him my little speech and was expecting something similar to what Rick had given me. I don’t know why I expected this, I suppose because my sample size of responses was 1. Greg’s response was quite different.
“Oh!...um…well…I hope you two know what you are doing.”
Hmm…so my first thought here was, does that count as a yes? I had no idea. It was sort of a neutral passive non-answer. Now what do I do! They need a book called “Asking the dad the question for Dummies” I am sure they would prepare you for these contingencies that I was not prepared for. Ch.4 – What do say when they don’t know who you are. Ch.5 – How to respond when they don’t really answer the question”. Those would have been two very useful chapters.
I’m not sure what I actually said next. I think I nervously laughed, hoping it was a joke. The thing was as unfamiliar as he was with me; I was as unfamiliar with him. So we had no clue how to interact! He eventually said the word congratulations at some point so I took that and thought, good enough. About 30 seconds into this conversation, he asks me this.
“So what do you think about this Pac-10 Big-12 conference merger?”
Awesome. This was going to work out just fine. I think I gave him a quick 10 second blurb about something and basically that was the end of the conversation. Short. Sweet. A dash of sports. What isn’t to like!
Mission accomplished.
2 dad’s to call, 2 permissions to proceed to the last step…Asking the REAL question. I'm just glad I am not Clint.
Oi…kids might have to wait…
Jon
