This is what you get…when you get cocky about having a three-day weekend.
I woke up Saturday to a Post-it note on the bathroom mirror. It said, “HELP – my ring fell down between the vanity and the wall.”
The author of the note had a meeting at the Hyatt. A committee made up mostly of physicians had flown in for a weekend meeting, which required attendance at 7:30am both Saturday and Sunday. In her drowsy stupor, she had managed to knock her ring (yes, THAT ring) into the small gap (3/8" or so) between the vanity top and the bathroom wall.
Once I was more fully awake, I started to come to grips with the size of project I was looking at. There would be no quick fix: no hanging a hook over the edge (no visibility), no magnet (gold is not ferrous), no vacuum (not enough room).
Disassembly would be the only option.
I tried to shut off the water below the sink, but the hot water shutoff valve was bad and started spewing water as soon as I turned it. Now I had to shut off the water to the entire house. That limits your day a bit.
With headlamp on forehead, I contorted my body to get underneath the sink. The close quarters basically required me to loosen the nuts about 1/16th of a turn at a time. Finally, I unhooked the water lines and tailpiece to the faucet, and was greeted with a lovely mix of hair and scum. It smelled wonderful, let me tell you. The vanity top ended up being too unwieldy to move by myself, so I had to wait a couple hours until my help arrived/got away from her meeting.
Once we got the top off, we realized we were stuck. There was absolutely no path to the tiny space alongside the vanity. There would be no drilling out the bottom or knocking a hole in the side.
We had to rip it off the wall.
Removed the moulding on the bottom. Knocked out two support braces. Pried (4) 4” nails out of the wall. Used needle-nose pliers, a hammer, and a chisel to knock out a hole big enough to move the backboard of the vanity around the hot water piping, which had simply been drilled through it.
Finally, it moved. We found her engagement ring, plus another ring she had lost 2 years ago and couldn’t figure out where it was.
Putting the damn thing back together was not much easier because I had sheared off the hot water flexible connector, meaning I had to do some surgery. But, in time, the sink was back in business, she had her ring back, and I polished off a half-bottle of wine and a beer.
Great way to kill a day, huh?
Showing posts with label engaged. Show all posts
Showing posts with label engaged. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Prologue to Happy Story
As a bit of a prologue:
The proposal worked out great, but my original idea was a bit different. Who would’ve thought that an ice storm in Memphis would change how I proposed to my girlfriend?
The ring was designed and ordered weeks ago, with guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve.
Naturally, I had it shipped to my office. Naturally, they waited until the last possible day to ship it. And naturally, this turned out to be one day too late.
My tentative plan was to propose Christmas Eve in front of my family—that way she would have the good news (and the ring, of course) when we visited her family shortly thereafter.
On December 24th, we were told to go home from work at 2pm. The shipment hadn’t arrived by that time. I undocked my laptop and moved to the front desk, hitting ‘refresh’ on the tracking window I had open about every 4 seconds or so. I was the only one left in the office. At 2:30pm, the package was still said to be in Memphis. They had gotten a pretty brutal dose of ice the night before…but up pulled a FedEx truck! At last the holidays could begin!
No dice.
He was there for pickups only, and after a call to a FedEx representative, I found I may as well go home. It wasn’t coming. It was stuck in Memphis.
I’ve never been so disappointed to leave work, much less to leave work with 11 days off ahead of me.
Christmas Eve with my immediate family and Christmas Day with my extended family came and went. On the 26th we headed north to Minnesota to see her family; plenty more calls to FedEx were made. Finally, on Monday the 29th the ring was delivered to the office.
Finally, I had a plan. We were driving home on the 30th. I would get up on the 31st, go to the office, get the ring, and surprise her at Michael’s New Year’s Eve party!
Yeah. We woke up on the 30th to nearly a foot of snow, which meant our friend’s house was completely snowed in. You literally could not see where the road was supposed to be. We shoveled the driveway, but we were out in the country on a street with 4 occupied houses…no way would the plow get there until late that night, we were told.
By mid-afternoon, we resigned ourselves to staying another night. I was wracking my brain trying to come up with another plan, taking our belongings from the car to the house, when lo and behold, the largest plow truck I’ve ever seen moved the masses of powder to the curb. Game on.
After slow going through all of Minnesota (and stops at Ikea and Trader Joe’s) we got home at 3:30am. But we got here, and that’s what counts.
On New Year’s Eve, I retrieved the ring, chewed the hell out of my nails all day, and got down on my knee in front of friends.
I wouldn’t change a thing.
The proposal worked out great, but my original idea was a bit different. Who would’ve thought that an ice storm in Memphis would change how I proposed to my girlfriend?
The ring was designed and ordered weeks ago, with guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve.
Naturally, I had it shipped to my office. Naturally, they waited until the last possible day to ship it. And naturally, this turned out to be one day too late.
My tentative plan was to propose Christmas Eve in front of my family—that way she would have the good news (and the ring, of course) when we visited her family shortly thereafter.
On December 24th, we were told to go home from work at 2pm. The shipment hadn’t arrived by that time. I undocked my laptop and moved to the front desk, hitting ‘refresh’ on the tracking window I had open about every 4 seconds or so. I was the only one left in the office. At 2:30pm, the package was still said to be in Memphis. They had gotten a pretty brutal dose of ice the night before…but up pulled a FedEx truck! At last the holidays could begin!
No dice.
He was there for pickups only, and after a call to a FedEx representative, I found I may as well go home. It wasn’t coming. It was stuck in Memphis.
I’ve never been so disappointed to leave work, much less to leave work with 11 days off ahead of me.
Christmas Eve with my immediate family and Christmas Day with my extended family came and went. On the 26th we headed north to Minnesota to see her family; plenty more calls to FedEx were made. Finally, on Monday the 29th the ring was delivered to the office.
Finally, I had a plan. We were driving home on the 30th. I would get up on the 31st, go to the office, get the ring, and surprise her at Michael’s New Year’s Eve party!
Yeah. We woke up on the 30th to nearly a foot of snow, which meant our friend’s house was completely snowed in. You literally could not see where the road was supposed to be. We shoveled the driveway, but we were out in the country on a street with 4 occupied houses…no way would the plow get there until late that night, we were told.
By mid-afternoon, we resigned ourselves to staying another night. I was wracking my brain trying to come up with another plan, taking our belongings from the car to the house, when lo and behold, the largest plow truck I’ve ever seen moved the masses of powder to the curb. Game on.
After slow going through all of Minnesota (and stops at Ikea and Trader Joe’s) we got home at 3:30am. But we got here, and that’s what counts.
On New Year’s Eve, I retrieved the ring, chewed the hell out of my nails all day, and got down on my knee in front of friends.
I wouldn’t change a thing.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy Story!
We are now engaged.
It is exhilarating.
At approximately 10:30 last night (New Year’s Eve), I got down on bended knee in front of my friends at Michael’s party and popped the question. I had planned on waiting a bit longer, but when two friends began saying their early goodbyes to get home to their kids I decided I should act quickly. The aforementioned friends were waiting for the aforementioned host to return from his apartment upstairs. When he came back, the butterflies in my stomach morphed into a swarm of bees. I told the few people hanging out in the foyer and kitchen to come into the main party room.
As Kid Rock’s “Bawitdaba” blared from Dan’s docked iPhone, I asked him to hit the pause button. He looked back at what was obviously a beet-red face and said, “Hit pause?” I think he may have realized what was about to happen considering the seizure-level trembling I was trying to supress.
What follows is my best remembrance of my “speech”. I was told it came out nicely; it remains a blur to me.
“Can I get everyone’s attention for a minute? It’s good to be here surrounded by lots of friends (and a few people I haven’t had the chance to meet yet). You know, 2008 has been a weird year in the world. I don’t mean to brag, but 2008 has been a really good year for me personally, and I owe that to my wonderful girlfriend Kim. Kim, you have changed my life for the better in so many ways, and I am a better person for having known you. So, before we take our first steps into 2009, I want to take the next step in our relationship. [To knee, out comes ring] Kim, will you marry me?”
I think that’s about right.
She said ‘yes’, if not audibly then certainly visually. There were tears in her eyes and her hand was over her mouth. She tells me my hands were shaking pretty badly as I put the ring on her finger, so she helped me get it the rest of the way. And with perfect tension-breaking timing, Dan hit play on his iPhone
It became even more blurry after that—a whirlwind of hugs, congratulations, and kisses from Kim. I went and called my parents, then spent the rest of the evening in a light-headed, smiling stupor, getting more congratulations, more compliments on the ring, and more kisses from Kim.
We drank some more wine, counted down the New Year, celebrated 2009, celebrated our love, celebrated the start of a new phase in our lives.
It couldn’t have turned out better.
It is exhilarating.
At approximately 10:30 last night (New Year’s Eve), I got down on bended knee in front of my friends at Michael’s party and popped the question. I had planned on waiting a bit longer, but when two friends began saying their early goodbyes to get home to their kids I decided I should act quickly. The aforementioned friends were waiting for the aforementioned host to return from his apartment upstairs. When he came back, the butterflies in my stomach morphed into a swarm of bees. I told the few people hanging out in the foyer and kitchen to come into the main party room.
As Kid Rock’s “Bawitdaba” blared from Dan’s docked iPhone, I asked him to hit the pause button. He looked back at what was obviously a beet-red face and said, “Hit pause?” I think he may have realized what was about to happen considering the seizure-level trembling I was trying to supress.
What follows is my best remembrance of my “speech”. I was told it came out nicely; it remains a blur to me.
“Can I get everyone’s attention for a minute? It’s good to be here surrounded by lots of friends (and a few people I haven’t had the chance to meet yet). You know, 2008 has been a weird year in the world. I don’t mean to brag, but 2008 has been a really good year for me personally, and I owe that to my wonderful girlfriend Kim. Kim, you have changed my life for the better in so many ways, and I am a better person for having known you. So, before we take our first steps into 2009, I want to take the next step in our relationship. [To knee, out comes ring] Kim, will you marry me?”
I think that’s about right.
She said ‘yes’, if not audibly then certainly visually. There were tears in her eyes and her hand was over her mouth. She tells me my hands were shaking pretty badly as I put the ring on her finger, so she helped me get it the rest of the way. And with perfect tension-breaking timing, Dan hit play on his iPhone
It became even more blurry after that—a whirlwind of hugs, congratulations, and kisses from Kim. I went and called my parents, then spent the rest of the evening in a light-headed, smiling stupor, getting more congratulations, more compliments on the ring, and more kisses from Kim.
We drank some more wine, counted down the New Year, celebrated 2009, celebrated our love, celebrated the start of a new phase in our lives.
It couldn’t have turned out better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)