Gather ’round, kids… it’s story time. Today we have a tale paramount to The Lord of The Rings… okay, perhaps not, but at least the story involves a ring. And, hey, it’s Valentine’s Day (or Single Awareness Day, in my world), so a sappy cute story is in order.
Allow me to preface the story with another. A few weeks ago, my brother was entered into a contest (unbeknownst to him) by his girlfriend of 3 years. He received a phone call one evening, informing him that he had been selected to compete in the final round of the competition. He had no idea what they were talking about.
“You and five other guys are going to dive into a large cake in hopes of finding a diamond wedding ring.”
Now, I should tell you that for as long as I’ve known my brother’s girlfriend, everyone has been asking “when are they going to get married?” People were expecting an engagement when they came over to pick me up in Australia. People have been expecting it at every major holiday, event and birthday since I returned in 2002. Now, long “courtships” of sorts may not be that out of place where you live, but this is Utah, where people tend to meet, date for a month, get engaged, married in a few months, and have their first kid slurping down Gerber by the time they hit the first anniversary of their initial date. My family has always been different. Hallelujah.
Anyway, Dustin (my brother), decided to play along, and so he found himself diving into a cake for a wedding ring. And finding it. And nearly giving my mother (and his girlfriend’s mother) a heart attack. Thus began the wedding talk. Turns out the wedding ring was actually only a cheapo placeholder… really… who would actually bake a diamond in a cake? Well, Laura (his girlfriend) began wearing the fake ring, on the appropriate finger. The wedding books started flying. She offered to get me a nice pink bride’s maid gown (gee… thanks). But they weren’t engaged.
We all figured it would happen soon, once they were able to actually redeem their winning ring gift certificate. We waited. And waited. And then the news…
“Laura’s doing a cake dive on Monday.”
Umm… what?
Turns out, Laura had entered herself in another cake dive for cash and prizes. Only this time, it was her turn… and she had to square off against not 5, but 96 other women. When I talked to her last night, she just sort of laughed and said it was just for fun, that they’d already won her ring. I mean… you can’t win two rings in under a month, right?
Wrong.
At the crack of dawn (literally… it was probably 7am at the latest), the 97 (total) women dove into the giant cake, wearing matching shirts to advertise the sponsors (of course). Their were apparently several prizes in this cake, such as tickets to Duran Duran (“Who’s she?” the winner of the tickets asked… shame) and a trip to… Wendover. Oooo… now that’s fancy!
Wearas Dustin’s cake dive had been somewhat civilised, Laura’s group turned into roughly what you’d expect of 97 wedding-hungry (sorry, Laura) women all fighting for the same thing: outright carnage. One girl went so far as to (playfully?) slam her friend’s head into the cake whilst fighting over a prize. After a minute or so (as far as I knew… I was watching it on the morning news from home), who pops up and does a little dance?
Yep, little ol’ Laura Ann. I don’t even want to try to calculate the odds of what just happened, but I can tell you this… they didn’t have this kind of luck when we all went to Vegas a year ago.
So, of course, we at home are all losing our minds. Two rings! I tried to hide my overwhelming jealousy of my brother (as the last time I ever won anything resulted in a free Mars bar at Cole’s in Bendigo Australia) as my dear mother just about destroyed the telephone trying to ring everyone we know. Amazing. Needless to say, I didn’t end up going to class (they’ll live).
But what of that poor cake?
But, oh, the fun didn’t stop there. Local news hyena Ally McKay started to cut in on the anchors reporting on other news, screaming, “We’ve got someone about to propose to his girlfriend here…”
No. Way. In. Hell.
Dustin isn’t known for being, well, outlandish, outspoken, or for basically wanting any attention (that gene, unfortunately, seems to have gone to me). There was no way that he would propose to Laura on TV. But…
“Laura, I know I’m a cheapskate, but will you marry me?”
(she said yes)
So, yes, it’s been an interesting day so far. All I can say is… is this what happens when you wait 3 years? If so, sign me up… diamonds are expensive.
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p style=”text-align: center”>Congrats, kids…
I wish I could have witnessed that. I can only imagine how insane those girls got. I bet there was someone on the side lines there for the “free ring” but all they wanted was some free cake. haha.
Congrats to the bro! weeeee.
[…] nd like a guy who runs around a lot. With the wedding coming up (no, not mine, silly…my brother’s), and my weekend vi […]