After five long years of courting, I finally decided it was the right time to pop the big question.

For years Gracie had been bugging me with "So, when do I get a ring?" and one day I just replied with "Right. That's it. If you ask me for a ring one more time, you wont be getting one... you'll be getting a ceramic clown!", ceramic clown being the first thing to come to mind.

So then it changed to "So, when am I getting a ceramic clown?"

So now I felt that the time was right, so out I went to scour the shops for a ceramic clown. I figured I'd tape the ring to the clown or something, but after many hours of unsuccessful clown hunting, I finally found the perfect solution. A gift shop in the mall was selling small Jack-in-the-box type thingies with a small spring-loaded ceramic clown inside. You push the clown inside, close the lid, fasten the latch, and you're set. Then when you open the latch, the little dude pops out at the speed of... well, a spring-loaded ceramic clown.

So what I did was tie the ring to one of the clown's hands with silver ribbon, and closed him inside. I then wrapped the box in nice shiney, silvery, hologramatic paper, and hid it well. Now all I had to do was pop the question. Here was the plan:

Xmas Eve, we were to go to my Mum's place after tea for drinks, video's, etc. and then open our presents at midnight. I didn't really fancy asking Gracie in front of everyone at midnight, so I decided to ask her just before we left for Mum's. Anyhow, Gracie's friends, Tracie and Jen, came into Shepparton to have dinner with Gracie Xmas Eve night. Unfortunately they decided to grab dinner at Charcoal Chicken and bring it home to eat. Her friends stayed for a while, so Gracie told me to go ahead and she'd pop over later. Well that fucocked up my plans somwhat, so I had to put Plan B into action. It was then I realised that I didn't have a Plan B.

Anyway, I strategically left my digital camera behind and headed off to Mum's. I'd thought that when Gracie showed up I would go "Oops! Left the camera at home! Come for a drive with me, smoopie.". But Gracie wasn't to show up. I rang home to see where she was, but the phone was engaged (I didn't realise until later that I was ringing the wrong number). So I decided to go home to see where she was. Just as I was pulling up to my unit, I saw Gracie and her friends pulling out of the driveway. They had just finished watching The Matrix on video and were on their way to drop Gracie off at Mum's. Phew...

We waved Tracie and Jen goodbye, and I asked Gracie to take a walk with me to get my camera. I grabbed the camera and called her into our room. I said "I wanna give you your present now", and handed her the box. As she opened the latch the little ceramic clown popped out and Gracie knew exactly what was going on. Her legs turned to jelly and I said "Well, come on, are you gunna marry me or what? I mean, I'm getting kinda sick of asking you." :o)

We arrived at Mum's and told everyone the news. Gracie flashed the ring. Mum cried. My brother, Jamie's girlfriend, Kylie, turned to him and smiled. Jamie looked back as if to say "You're not getting one of those yet". Mum ran off to the back room and returned with a gold-wrapped package. "I bought this for you years ago in anticipation of this moment" she said. We opened the box, and it was a beautiful Waterford Crystal set of two toasting glasses. It was a great night, and probably my best Christmas ever.

I'm still a little weirded out by the events of this Christmas. Me and Gracie are calling each other "fiance" and I'm looking forward to saying thinks like "Hello, I'm Michael and this is my fiance, Gracie". Plans are being made for our future, and we're going to open a joint bank acocunt, so yeah, It's full steam ahead.

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