Four years ago, my girlfriend and I went out for Valentine's Day. I took her to dinner. I took her to a touring broadway musical that she had been wanting to see for two years. It was a beautiful, clear, moonlit night. She was beautiful.

On the way home we stopped at a small park with a meandering brook and a gazebo. She humored me, with protest, when I asked her to follow me out of the car; it was february in Michigan after all.

She didn't know how nervous I was. She didn't know that I had a ring in my pocket.