Jan 16, 2020
Before you read further, check a long ago post: We Met on A Five-Hour Trip to Lake Powel. That is the day I met Scott. This post is after that. 🙂
After our loverly first meeting driving down to Lake Powel, Scott and I remained great friends. We would say, “Hi,” to each other at church. I’d ask him about his latest date. He’d tease and make things awkward, ’cause that’s what you do when you’re Scott Comte and think it’s funny….
One day, I was sitting in the clerk’s office at church, doing some computer work. It was a small room with a desk, some chairs, a fridge, a bunch of snacks. Our bishopric kept the room well stacked with deliciousness. I’m unsure if the food was for them or for the ward members, but the ward members sure did raid it a lot.
Scott came in, grabbed a few snacks—pretzels, his favorite—and started chatting with me. “I joined the military,” he said, “the Air Force.”
“That’s awesome,” I said supportively.
“Yeah. I will go to basic training next July.” He chomped on a pretzel for a bit, then said, “I should get married before I go. It would be good to have a wife to support me.”
“Yeah,” I replied.
He looked at me mischievously. “I mean, we could get married.”
“Well,” I said, the same mischievous look in my eye, “you gotta get me a ring.”
He looked at his pretzel. “Okay.” Then he carefully popped out the center of the pretzel, knelt on the ground, and with the pretzel ring extended to me, he said, “Sara, will you marry me.”
I playfully blushed. “Yes!”
He put the ring on my left ring finger and we shared a silly smile. Then, he took the ring back and ate it.
“Hey,” I complained, “You ate my ring.”
“I’ll just have to get you a better one,” he said, his smile more mischievous.
After that day, we had a running joke that Scott and I would get married, but only when he got me a new ring.
The joke continued like this:
One evening, just after a fireside, I looked at a desert Scott brought, grabbed a piece and went to him. “This has pretzels in it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, not knowing what would come next.
I raised an eyebrow and waited. When he didn’t catch on, I demanded, “Where’s my ring.”
We both laughed.
And yet, another time, during a formal activity night, Scott and I danced a slow song. My friend took her fake ring she wore to make guys at the hospital stop hitting on her and shoved it in Scott’s hand. He got down on one knee while the entire ward—our church group—watched and proposed to me.
I said yes, of course.
We continued to danced.
After a few minutes, he said, “What if we really did get married one day?”
I looked at him for a second and nothing came out of my mouth. When the song ended, I walked away, still not saying a word. I’m not sure why. It was rude. I’m sure he wondered what the heck just happened. I was dumbfounded by his words. They seemed silly, didn’t they? Maybe, maybe, I had feelings that I was ignoring. Maybe.
I used to tell my mom there was this guy at church that I liked and he is exactly the type of guy I would like to marry. She told me I should ask him out. I said, “He’s too young,” and that was that.
But there were so many times these feelings would creep up when in Scott’s presence and I didn’t know what to do with them.
Have I mentioned yet that Scott used to carry my picture in his wallet? He stole it from me. He was at my house for a movie night. On the table were a bunch of pictures of me from when I was younger. As I was cleaning them up, one dropped on the floor. He scooped it up before I could and shoved it in his wallet.
He went through a few relationships with other girls and kept that picture of me from middle school in his wallet. Later, when we dated, I asked him about the picture. He said, “I threw it away about a month ago. It seemed weird to have a picture of a kid in my wallet. I felt like I was getting weird looks.”
And last interesting memory of how crazy feelings would creep up. A few weeks before our first date, we had an activity that we were both in charge of. For one of the activities that he was over, he divided everyone into partners. He assigned everyone, skipping me. I was a little confused until he said, “We’ll be partners.”
The game was a get-to-know-you game. He had come up with a bunch of questions the partners were supposed to ask each other. Everyone had ten minutes. When the time was up, the partners had to share something they learned about each other with the rest of the group.
We knew all the answers for each other. It was awesome! So we just joked and laughed the whole time.
Thirty minutes later, we made binders with helpful recipes and young adult and home organization tips. When most of the activity attendees left, Scott started flirting with another girl. I watched, jealous.
I reprimanded myself, “There is no reason to be jealous. And she’s a great girl.”
Interesting how we try to burry our feelings when we aren’t ready to confront them.
Scott mentioned to the girl that he had fake proposed to me. It was a great joke we liked to tell people. But as he told this girl the joke, I was secretly happy he mentioned it. Take that, girl!
Little did we know throughout that year of friendship that Scott’s fake proposal would one day turn into a real proposal. And it was a great proposal. More on that later, I promise. 🙂
For now, enjoy this story. Read it again. I mean, if you want. And maybe share it. I mean, if you want. 😉