Monday, May 03, 2004
My forty-ninth post
In news that will surely come as as great a shock to my readership as it did to me, I have been accused of being "unromantic." Yes, I, who would epitomize Latin passion if it weren't for the fact that my ancestry was entirely Scottish. As proof of the romanticism coursing through my veins, I offer you insight into my genetic makeup in the form of the following story, which I call "How My Parents Got Married". The reason for the title will fast become apparent to you as you realize that it's a story about how my parents got married.
The story of how my parents met is a boring one - of the typical he-was-a-skydiving-instructor-and-she-was-his-student variety - so I shall not go into it here. Suffice it to say that after several failed attempts, my mother eventually made my father aware of her existence (and indeed the existence of her entire gender) and a relationship of some years followed.
After these years, my father was planning on going up to Fort McMurray to work indefinitely in one of his varied pursuits (his B.Sc with a major in organic chemistry had naturally led him to work in fields such as surveying, cab-driving, and aviation). My mother was contractually bound to a teaching position in Sherwood Park, so this development was apparently somewhat traumatic for her. She asked him if he wanted her to wait for him. He, in an answer that I hope will dispel this ridiculous myth that males are, as a gender, insensitive or unchivalrous, told her that it was up to her, and that he would not presume to make any outlandish requests (his exact words - my mother remains quite emphatic on this point even now - were "Whatever you want").
Apparently, the correct answer was not "Whatever you want," but "Yes." Which you would think meant that my mother *wanted* to wait for him, which makes her subsequent decision to date other people - to, in fact, *not* wait for him - seem a little intellectually incoherent. Anyway, my father was in Forth McMurray for several months while my mother was in Sherwood Park dating other people. Naturally, this state of affairs convinced my father that the time was ripe to propose marriage.
He returned to Edmonton and purchased a ring. Then, as an afterthought, he phoned my mother to ask if he could come over. If he had a contingency plan in the event that she answered in the negative, he hasn't mentioned it to this day (though, knowing the efficiency expert that my father is, he probably would have found some other woman to propose to. I mean, he had the ring anyway, right?). Fortunately (for my two siblings and me), there was no need for such a contingency plan, as she apparently gave him a grudging "yes," whereupon he came over and proposed. The exact text of the proposal has not survived the years, but we can safely assume that it was commensurate in level of romanticness with the rest of their courtship.
Now, it would seem that at this point a "yes" would wrap this story up nicely, and that they could get on to producing my brother, who served as practice for my own eventual appearance on this planet. I mean, you know they get married, I know they get married, why draw things out any longer? You'd have to ask my mother, as she answered with a "maybe." Then she tried to put it out of her mind as she went to have her wisdom teeth removed.
Now, I hope that this story has not thus far portrayed my old man in an unflattering light. In truth, he is one of the smartest men I have ever known, an assertion with which I hope that you will agree once I reveal the tactical brilliance of his next move: he waited until my mother was high on post-surgical sedatives, and called her for an answer then. Genius!
As my mother describes it, she was lying in bed unconscious when a herd of nurses came twittering in with a telephone to wake her up and giddily tell her that "Andy [was] on the phone and [wanted] to know [her] answer." Wanting only to make the nurses go away and to go back to sleep, my mother took the receiver, offered a weary "yes," and immediately fell back to sleep, only be awakened again hours later to see my father's parents at the side of her bed, welcoming her to the family.
Once she came off the influence of the tranquilizers, she decided that she might as well go ahead and marry him, which she did (after notifying her own parents), and so they have remained for twenty-eight years. Though I still hear her muttering the word "annulment" during the rough patches. . .
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In news that will surely come as as great a shock to my readership as it did to me, I have been accused of being "unromantic." Yes, I, who would epitomize Latin passion if it weren't for the fact that my ancestry was entirely Scottish. As proof of the romanticism coursing through my veins, I offer you insight into my genetic makeup in the form of the following story, which I call "How My Parents Got Married". The reason for the title will fast become apparent to you as you realize that it's a story about how my parents got married.
The story of how my parents met is a boring one - of the typical he-was-a-skydiving-instructor-and-she-was-his-student variety - so I shall not go into it here. Suffice it to say that after several failed attempts, my mother eventually made my father aware of her existence (and indeed the existence of her entire gender) and a relationship of some years followed.
After these years, my father was planning on going up to Fort McMurray to work indefinitely in one of his varied pursuits (his B.Sc with a major in organic chemistry had naturally led him to work in fields such as surveying, cab-driving, and aviation). My mother was contractually bound to a teaching position in Sherwood Park, so this development was apparently somewhat traumatic for her. She asked him if he wanted her to wait for him. He, in an answer that I hope will dispel this ridiculous myth that males are, as a gender, insensitive or unchivalrous, told her that it was up to her, and that he would not presume to make any outlandish requests (his exact words - my mother remains quite emphatic on this point even now - were "Whatever you want").
Apparently, the correct answer was not "Whatever you want," but "Yes." Which you would think meant that my mother *wanted* to wait for him, which makes her subsequent decision to date other people - to, in fact, *not* wait for him - seem a little intellectually incoherent. Anyway, my father was in Forth McMurray for several months while my mother was in Sherwood Park dating other people. Naturally, this state of affairs convinced my father that the time was ripe to propose marriage.
He returned to Edmonton and purchased a ring. Then, as an afterthought, he phoned my mother to ask if he could come over. If he had a contingency plan in the event that she answered in the negative, he hasn't mentioned it to this day (though, knowing the efficiency expert that my father is, he probably would have found some other woman to propose to. I mean, he had the ring anyway, right?). Fortunately (for my two siblings and me), there was no need for such a contingency plan, as she apparently gave him a grudging "yes," whereupon he came over and proposed. The exact text of the proposal has not survived the years, but we can safely assume that it was commensurate in level of romanticness with the rest of their courtship.
Now, it would seem that at this point a "yes" would wrap this story up nicely, and that they could get on to producing my brother, who served as practice for my own eventual appearance on this planet. I mean, you know they get married, I know they get married, why draw things out any longer? You'd have to ask my mother, as she answered with a "maybe." Then she tried to put it out of her mind as she went to have her wisdom teeth removed.
Now, I hope that this story has not thus far portrayed my old man in an unflattering light. In truth, he is one of the smartest men I have ever known, an assertion with which I hope that you will agree once I reveal the tactical brilliance of his next move: he waited until my mother was high on post-surgical sedatives, and called her for an answer then. Genius!
As my mother describes it, she was lying in bed unconscious when a herd of nurses came twittering in with a telephone to wake her up and giddily tell her that "Andy [was] on the phone and [wanted] to know [her] answer." Wanting only to make the nurses go away and to go back to sleep, my mother took the receiver, offered a weary "yes," and immediately fell back to sleep, only be awakened again hours later to see my father's parents at the side of her bed, welcoming her to the family.
Once she came off the influence of the tranquilizers, she decided that she might as well go ahead and marry him, which she did (after notifying her own parents), and so they have remained for twenty-eight years. Though I still hear her muttering the word "annulment" during the rough patches. . .
