...but of mummifying the corpse.

So says Mr. P. G. Wodehouse, at any rate.

I imagine proposing has to be pretty tough.  First off, there's a fair bit of nervousness that I'm sure accompanies the act, but that's fairly obvious and I won't even bother talking about that.  If you've gotten to know the girl in question well enough to suggest she change her last name, then I'm sure the fear of rejection won't be majorly crippling.  It's probably more akin to that public speaking assignment in seventh grade English: sure, we were all gawky and awkward and self conscious, but you get up and mumble your bit and sit down and get a B+.  Cake.

No, I think there are far more sinister forces working against the male of the species when approaching the fairer sex to nominate himself eternal bedfellow.  When I was in elementary school I remember some of my "friends" who were girls describe their ideal husband, wedding, and honeymoon in extravagant detail.  (Although I sincerely doubt I had any actual friends who were girls when I was in elementary school, since it's a known fact of science that girls of that age are gross, useless, and at best only mildly fascinating in a "pull their hair" sort of way)  In our glorious post-modern day and age, where a woman is (rightly) considered a bit old fashioned and out of date when she longs for her white knight to save her from her gilded tower, the modern woman has climbed down from the tower and slain that damn dragon herself so she can get back to living a meaningful and fulfilling existence that is dictated by her own wants and desires, not the whims and fancies of the man of the house.  Donna Reed has left the building.

Yet the self-actualized female surely wants some romance in her life.  After all, she may be out of her tower but she still grew up on Barbie dolls and Pretty Pretty Princess games and all the other pink plastic crap advertising executives deem appropriate for little girls.  She had her little diary with a lock and key where she wrote about the boy she had a crush on and how they would one day fall madly in love with each other.  And from my previously mentioned personal experience, little girls seem to know what they want.  They envision moonlight, string quartets, champagne, glistening white smiles with rows of perfect teeth, and after being brought to the point of near-swoon, the white knight who produces the ring.  After that comes the wedding and the honeymoon and the three kids (two girls, one boy) and the dog named Buster.  So perhaps the toughest mountain the potential bridegroom-to-be has to crest when preparing his proposal is to make sure it lives up to this high romantic ideal his potential bride-to-be has fantasized about ever since she was a little girl at slumber parties.  This is the real challenge.

So the other day I witnessed a marriage proposal.  What follows is the play-by-play.

I went to my local locally-owned coffeeshop with my laptop to sip coffee and check email and do a little work.  I'm sitting at a table by myself, and next to me is a pretty large group of perhaps a dozen people.  If they're not college students, they're at least right out of college.  I'm not really paying attention to them, but they're sort of giving off the vibe of a bible study group going out for a night on the town.  You know the vibe I'm talking about.

At any rate, these good wholesome American kids are taking off jackets and getting settled and they're being a bit too noisy for my quiet tastes.  I'm contemplating moving over a couple of tables, but then I hear one of the guys say, "Hey, does anyone want to see a magic trick?"

"I do," I think to myself.  "I want to see a magic trick."

I'm pretending to look at my screen, but really I'm watching this guy do his magic trick.

"Abraca-One," he says.  His hand is reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket.  Some of his friends start laughing a bit.

"This guy doesn't know any magic," I think.  "This looks like it's going to be a lame trick."  I keep watching anyways.  You never know.

"Abraca-Two," says the potential groom-to-be.  He pulls out a ring case.

"Uh oh," I think. "Uh oh.."

"Abraca-Three, Will you marry me?"  He drops to one knee and presents the ring to a girl across the circle from him.

Screw the laptop. I 'm not even pretending to look at it.  I am full on staring at this girl.  I think I was probably biting my nails, too, because there's evidence to that effect on my left hand.  "Why isn't this girl saying anything?" I wonder.  I'm holding my breath, and still this girl is just looking around at all of her friends, her mouth hanging agape.  "Oh, please, just say yes!" I think. "Oh please, just say no!"  I squirm a little at the thought.  I just want her to say something.  She's in shock, is all.  This was not the magic trick she expected her boyfriend to do.  After about a day and a half, she finally finds her voice and squeaks out a tiny little happy "yes," and there is a collective release of breath from everyone and we all start clapping.  They kiss and do the whole calling the parents thing and she asks all her friends if they knew this was going to happen and some of them say yes and then he tells the story of how he called her father right before to get his permission and there's a general giddiness in the air.   If anyone else in that group was planning anything big that night, they were upstaged by the engagement.  I guess they'll have to come out of the closet some other time.

At some point during that day and a half when she had us on the edge of our seats with our hearts pounding like a Neil Peart drum solo, she must have thought to herself, "This Is It. This is the marriage proposal I've been dreaming about since I was a little girl.  My white knight is on his knees on the dirty floor of this coffeeshop, pretending to do a magic trick."  I'm not judging, not by any means, I was quite moved by the whole thing, but this place never struck me as the ideal place to pop the question.  But it was quite a trick.  He made a bachelor disappear.

Congratulations, kids.  Make it work.