Guns and Gems

More than a year and a half ago, on Thursday, September 12, 2013 the guy I had been dating for about a month was leaving to head back to college. We had been spending a lot of time together so he asked what was I going to do with myself when he was gone. I am a pretty literal person and often forget to think about other peoples feelings before I speak. My response was simple. I was going to go gun shopping with Derek, he had a ton of guns and said he would help me pick it out and make sure it was a good deal. I had wanted to buy a pistol for about 6 years and was finally going to get one. Being socially inept and not recognizing that my boyfriend might be upset that I was immediately going out with another guy to make a large life decision/purchase, I was quite proud of myself and excited to go shopping. His response was snarky, but now proves to be prophetic. "You're going to marry Derek Brown aren't you." I responded with a "Possibly" and a shoulder shrug. I realized pretty quickly that was probably not the most tactful response, but my honesty often times sneaks right through my kindness filter.

So September 14th comes. I meet Derek at Sportsman's Warehouse. Due to my honesty, my office mate Holly, my recently departed no longer boyfriend, and Kristi Perry substitute and matchmaker extraordinaire, all knew I was swooning over this man named Derek. However Derek did not know, he thought I had a boyfriend. We went in looked at guns, walked around the store, contemplated buying a gun, decided and went to purchase a gun, went back home because I forgot to bring all the right ID to purchase a firearm, met back up at Sportsman's and I bought a beautiful compact 9 mm Smith & Wesson. I loved how small it was and how it fit nicely in my tiny hands. Then afterwards I had a football game to go to with my friends, and I had an extra ticket for someone to go with me. I invited Derek and the day turned into a date. At the end of the night we say goodbye at the door, he tells me that it had been one of the top 5 days in his life. Great it went well, I am swooning. Next, .enter in the good night affection. Nope. All that happened was the most awkward hug known to man. Really though, it was rough. It was a bro hug pretty much. I spent the next few months hoping one of those Brown boys would ask me out. I thought I had already made my move and was going to  wait it out. So I waited. The continuation of this story can be found here. It chronicles how we eventually came to dating. I will say that on date number two we really hit it off, and we have spent pretty much every day since then together.

Yesterday, Derek and I return to Sportsman's. He is headed to the Grand Canyon for a school trip and led me there with a rues of having to pick something up. We were going to meet my mom at Costco afterward for a hot dog because she was heading home from visiting Alison in Utah. I didn't know for sure but I was hoping he was going to ask me an important question. He has been looking for a gun safe for a long time and we always go through that department and open up all the gun safes because its fun and we think we are cool because we know the secret code. He said his mom had also told him that they had safes on sale. We go through and push the buttons on some, but they are not plugged in and don't light up. We head to the one that is always plugged in. I press the code, several times but it is not working for me so I tell him to go ahead and give it a try. He is strangely insistent that I do it. Eventually he makes me open it up and in there is a small pretty box and a dozen roses (that happen to match my nail polish color exactly-which is a big deal because I am wearing 4 different colors at the time.) He got an his knee and said his adorable and romantic shpeal and I responded affirmatively.  His parents had been hiding in a duck blind recording it all so we walk around the store to find them. My mom had also been hiding out in the store and we meet up with her as well.

At dinner afterwards I made a comment about how 'we started there looking at 9 mm and ended up looking at carets.' The one request I had for my ring was that I wanted a ruby as the stone. Derek had done a lot of research and shopping to make that happen. All without me. He corrected me by telling me that rubies, like my rounds of ammo, are also measured in millimeters not carets because their weights vary.  I am not sure what millimeter my ring measures in, but just like my 9 mm it's beautiful, and fits nicely on my hand.