Monday morning saw us gathered over coffee discussing the next move. “Thank goodness it is the end of the month soon!” Chad said “I am almost broke after all of that.” “What are you going to do next though?” asked Chloe “I don’t know, but it will have to be cheap!” Chad said, we lapsed into silence, and then Chloe said, “I talked to miss Smith yesterday-” I cut in, “Yes, I saw that you had sat next to her at church, I wondered what you were up too. And what does a 40 year old spinster know about proposing?” Chloe gave me one of her special annoyed looks, I think it makes her look like a school girl about to stamp her foot, “she told me about this James Allen advert, and in the advert there is this cabin, surrounded by snow, and the man comes out of the cabin and admires the view, and then he pees, and calls his girlfriend over, to reveal he has ‘written’ ‘Will you marry me?’ in the snow with his… you know.” There was horrified silence as Chad and I looked at each other, “impossible” I said “you would never have enough to write all that. I mean you would be bursting” Chad had a different reaction; “it is summer where would we even find snow?” “It would all come out in cursive even if you could get it accurate enough.” “Cursive can be very romantic,” said Chloe

“I think we should try Mr. Browns retriever” I said staunchly, “I know the results weren’t what he wanted, but I think the idea is romantic, and if we include Ava’s’ name on the card…” Chad was shaking his head “Ava can’t stand dogs” he said “she had a bad experience as a child, and has never gotten over it.” “What sort of ‘bad experience?’” I asked, “I can’t remember the details, something to do with a bulldog stealing her ice-cream, the important point is; she does not get on well with dogs!” “What about cats?” asked Chloe, “she gets on alright with cats” Chad confirmed, “you can’t teach a cat to carry something” I pointed out, “yes you can!” Chloe said “I saw it on a talent show. Besides, there is a shelter down the road, I bet we can get a cat for next to nothing!” I had my misgivings, but Chad seemed happier than he had all day, so I kept them to myself and went to see how Newton was getting on with my computer, “found the problem Newton? Or has it just court whatever Chads computer had?” I asked grinning as I came up to the desk, Newton grinned back in an attempt to be sociable, “like corona virus?” I looked at him puzzled “what is ’corona virus?” I asked, Newton looked at me as if I had escaped from a psych ward “it’s this virus that popped up in Wuhan, origin unknown, and is now rampaging through China, don’t you watch the news? They have been quarantining people coming in.” I shrugged “I hardly ever watch the news; it doesn’t affect me, so why should I worry about it? Oh, by the way, if you were going to propose to a girl how would you do it?” “Propose?” Now he really was looking at me like I had escaped from the loony bin “Marriage” I said, “and it doesn’t have to be you personally, I mean have you heard of any interesting ways to ask a girl to marry you?” Newton lent on the desk and starched his head, “I guess…” he trailed off, and then “my farther used to be a cartoonist” I wondered if he had hit his head harder than the hospital had thought, “not anything big you understand, it was just for our local paper” I nodded politely, “and when he decided to ask my mum, well he drew it in a three piece slide; him getting down on one knee, asking the question, and then he left her speech bubble blank.” Newton fidgeted; “they have a framed copy of it at home, except that mum has filled in the speech bubble with a ‘yes’” I thought it was quite a good story when he had finally gotten it all out. But completely infeasible for Chad; [I don’t think you can become a local cartoonist in a matter of weeks, get your girlfriend to read the paper so you can propose and then leave after doing it!] So it looked like cat training it was going to be! I have never been a cat person, dogs yes, cats no. I mean ‘better a live dog than a dead cat.’ Something like that anyway, [that is Proverbs or maybe Ecclesiastes] besides cats are associated with old ladies, witch craft, and bad luck, [especially if they are black and left-handed] and on top of all of that they have claws! Because of this I left it to Chloe to choose and collect, the planned feline. All my prejudices were justified when I walked in to the office the next morning and found a wild haired creature sleeping on the staff sofa, on closer inspection this turned out to be Chloe rather than the cat. In fact, there was no cat at all, on the ground next to the sofa was a box containing 7 [yes 7] kittens. I woke Chloe up and started her talking. “I made it to the shelter just fine,” “that is good” I put in “but they didn’t have any cats,” “that was bad,” [Chloe gave me a look, that suggested my commentary was not helping,] “they did have this litter of kittens,” “that is neutral, probably” “so, I took them home,” “likely good” “but when I got home, I found a water pipe had burst and the house was completely flooded” “that is bad, water can leave a stain,” [at this point she threw a cushion at me] “so I took the kittens, to my friend, Alishia’s house, but Alishia wouldn’t let me in; she was worried about this news that covid has gotten into the country…” at this Chloe started to sob and then to properly cry. I was at a loss; as I have already said I have never had a girlfriend, so I have never learnt what to do with crying girls, or kittens.

The kittens proved to be a problem; we couldn’t leave them in the office, Chad said that he couldn’t take 7 kittens home without alerting Ava that something was going on, and Chloe had nowhere to keep them, she was having difficulty finding a place to keep herself. [the water damage was so bad that they were saying it would take six months to repair, so Chloe was looking for somewhere else to stay.] The upshot of all of this was that the kittens ended up coming home with me. I would like to say that the experience converted me to a cat person, but I would be lying; the moment I let out of their box they went everywhere, it was like an explosion of kittens, one of them fell it into the pasta draw, and managed to get out a packet of spaghetti, the other kittens, who were waiting bellow, quickly spread the spaghetti through the kitchen, through the living room, and even into my bedroom! [I was still finding little bits of it weeks after the incident, pushed under the stove or hidden between the cushions on the couch] the idea of training these little monsters to deliver a love letter looked as certain to frail as Ed Sheeran’s next album was to succeed. But then inspiration struck, you see while Chloe might watch talent shows where misguided people train cats, I watch my own type videos online, [and not just the ones with C4 or RDX] so I rushed out to my local corner store. I arrived back just in time to see the kittens, in a cluster, murdering the remains of a roll of toilet paper. Well, I pulled out my newly acquisition, a laser pointer, and fired it up. The results were beautiful, I mean the kittens went from a, disorganised, uncontrollable, rabble, to a, disorganised, but controllable, mess of fur and claws, I was very pleased with the results. Chad and Chloe were not as pleased; they complained that my method lacked ‘grace,’ and ‘romantic style.’ I pointed out that it worked; they said it ‘set the wrong mood,’ I said that ‘it works,’ they said it was ‘cutting corners’ I pointed out that Chloe too busy house hunting to train them, so, this was the best we could hope for. It was at this point that Chad vetoed plan kitten, and it was back to the drawing board. Or rather Chad went back to the drawing board, because that night news of the first covid lock down broke! It didn’t affect us directly as it was in a different city, but it was big news, and it put Chads problems out of my mind for a day or two. At least while plans were drafted for working from home in the event of etc. So, I missed the planning stage of the next offensive, and was only roped in for the practical side of it. It happened just as I was leaving work one afternoon, Chloe pulled up next to me in her car [which, let me tell you is a real fender bender] and told me to “get in” “Aren’t you supposed to offer me some candy, or something first?” I asked, “I think there is a hard boiled sweet stuck in one of the cupholders, now hurry up!” I got in, although I am not very fond of hard-boiled sweets. “Have you found somewhere to stay?” I asked as the car jumped forward and I tried to get my seatbelt on, “yes, actually it is over on George Street!” there was a note of sarcasm in her voice, but I did not notice immediately “I live on George Street” I said conversationally, “yes,” she said, there was no mistaking the venom now in her voice, “you didn’t think to mention that the apartment under you was up for rent, did you!” “Is it?” I said, “I didn’t realise it was!” “Well, it is not any more, because I have rented it!” there was an awkward silence as we both realised, we had been talking very loudly, “where are we going” I asked at last, trying to change the subject, “Chad and I have come up with a plan” Chloe said. I won’t tell you the plan as I heard it, Chloe was being a bit prickly and needlessly complicated. So here is the plan as I came to understand it.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The plan was, comparatively, simple; it was a spin on Judith Keens’ ‘Cake with a ring in it,’ Chad, had gotten permission from a friend to use an abandoned restaurant as the staging area. It was one of those high-class restraints with double swinging doors for the chief to burst through dramatically at the last minute to declare that ‘they had forgotten to take the poison glands out of that very expensive fish you were now eating.’ Apparently there had been ‘problems in the management, which is when Chads friend had bought it. None of this is important, what is important was that we had an abandoned restaurant to stage the proposal in; the plan was that Chad, would bake a cake with the all-important message ‘will you marry me’ elegantly iced on, I would then bring Ava into the restraint, Chloe would cut the lights, leaving only the doors to the kitchen romantically illuminated by candle light, Chad would push open these doors, and Chloe would release the rose petals being held in a sheet above them, then Chad would go down on one knee, holding out the cake, and with any luck Ava would accept! And Chad would stand up and passionately French kiss her, transferring the ring he was holding in his mouth to hers. I really did not need to know this last detail, but Chloe had gotten into full swing by that point, and Chloe at full swing is hard to stop. Chloe also told me that we were going to do a trail run, to iron out the wrinkles and timing of the thing. I was in favour of this, but even if we got the timing of the thing perfect, there was still so much that could go wrong! We might still burn the restaurant down with the confetti we were using instead of rose petals in the dry run. Or when it came to the actual event, Chad, in the excitement of the moment might swallow the ring! But, even with these potential disasters I, have to admit, things started very promisingly, I had been concerned ever since Chloe had told me that Chad was in the kitchen baking the cake. I had been imagining it coming out like one of my cakes; that is, lopsided, burnt on one end and raw in the middle. But when Chad showed us his creation, I had to admit he was an incredible baker. And he knew his way around icing a cake too; it was a chocolate cake with white icing. The words; picked out in the darkest chocolate sauce, were in cursive, which I have been told is can be a very romantic font.

The first practice run went very well; nothing court on fire. Chloe released the confetti half a second to soon, and Chad realised he would need somewhere to put the cake when he stood up for his passionate kiss. But those little details are exactly what the practice run was for. We decided that I would stand off to the side so Chad could hand the cake to me as he stood up. And with that settled we tried it again, and this is where it all began to go a little bit wrong. Before we get into what happened I had better explain that the kittens had been traveling around a bit. Chloe refused to send them back to the shelter, [and I was not looking after 7 kittens for ever] we had managed to find homes for 4 of them with other colleagues from the office, but 3 of them had stayed with us, being passed round like a hot potato between the 3 of us. And that day just happened to be Chad’s day for having the kittens. He had put them in one of those little kennel things. So they were safely locked up in the kitchen while Chad was baking his cake. At least that is what we all thought, somehow, they had managed to break out. How they managed it remains a mystery even to this day, I examined the kennel/carrier thing later and could not see anything wrong with it. The point is the kittens were out and on the second attempt, when Chad burst through the kitchen doors he was followed by a kitten, none of us saw it at the time, we were too busy admiring the perfect timing of the confetti, but we all noticed when Chad stood on it! He was just in the process of handing the cake to me when there was a yowl at his feet, I saw him go over just before I received a face full of chocolate cake with white icing and chocolate lettering. Chloe says that I had the M of marry stuck on my forehead, but I cannot confirm this, what I can confirm is that Chad broke his ankle in the fall, Chloe had to call an ambulance, and Chad ended up in a cast. Chad was in surprisingly high spirits as the ambulance team carried him out of the restraint, he was sure [in spite of his ancle] that we had found the wining formula for his proposal, and as soon as he was ‘back on his feet’ we would be ready for operation engagement cake. But that was the last our proposal attempts with Chad because, what none of us could foresee was the next week we were put into our first covid lock down, and it was one of the longest lockdowns in the pandemic. And it happened to be over this lockdown that Chad proposed, it was not a traditional proposal, Chad couldn’t kneel in his cast, but it wasn’t anything grand or spectacular either, it couldn’t be really, they were stuck at home. But it made me think that perhaps we had gotten something wrong in our plans; we had been so carried away by the method, and style of the thing, that we had forgotten the most important thing; the method isn’t important, it is the person, and the sentiment behind the proposal that is important rather than just how it is done! Chloe moved into the apartment below mine, and brought the 3 kittens with her, we rigged a system so they could go between our balcony’s. And one day, a few months later, when I decided to propose to her I did it by attaching the ring and a note to one of the cats’ collars, it worked very well, maybe I am a cat person after all. 😉

The end.