Thread by @hihello_hannah

Hello internet! I would like to tell you a (somewhat long) story about how my Friday went from wildly frustrating to possibly the greatest day of my life. Buckle in if you're interested, because I tend to ramble.

I live in Texas, and it's Pretty Freaking Hot™ in the summer months. Of course, my car AC decided now would be a good time to stop working instead of, oh I don't know, any time when the temp outside doesn't regularly hit the triple digits.

So I sweat for a week before giving in and taking it to the repair shop Friday morning. I naively thought it would be fine to take it myself and wait, so I arrive at 10am and check my car in for its repair.

After several hours and multiple conversations they tell me they've got a fix that might save me from a more costly repair. It's around 2:30pm when they finish up and tell me my AC seems to be working and it's a 50/50 shot it holds.

I leave and get halfway home before the check engine light comes on (which wasn't on before) and then the AC stops working again. GREAT. I call the shop and they're extremely apologetic and tell me to bring it right back.

They fix the check engine light & give me the estimate for the big repair. It's A LOT. Now it's 4pm, I'm tired, and just sunk $$$ into a car that won't be fixed until Monday so I might as well take my sweaty body home and quit while I'm behind.

If at this point you're like, OK this is a lot of car talk I don’t really care about, where's the happy ending I was promised? THAT'S HOW I FELT TOO, and that's why I was home frustratedly ranting to my boyfriend about cars and how stupid they are.

He reassures me it'll be okay, we'll get the car fixed on Monday, we'll figure out the money. We unfortunately had a date night planned that night since he was out of town for work on our 5th anniversary, so I’m worried I’ve ruined that too.

I calm down and he suggests we play a board game to take my mind off of things until we can go to our dinner reservation. If you know us, you know we love board games. They've been a constant in our relationship and we play them all the time.

He suggests we play Fog of Love, which if you're unfamiliar, is a really unique two player board game where you play through a fictitious relationship by making a series of choices based on funny, sweet, and dramatic "scenes" or prompts.

He says he just got an expansion for the game so I'm excited! We open the new pack of cards & as soon as I see the premise of the "love story" we'll be playing through, I pause. I look confused. I laugh. My not-dumb-but-not-overconfident senses tingle.

It’s titled "The Secret Engagement" and reads "You meet at a themed party and soon realize you work for the same company, but decide to keep your interest in each other under wraps from co-workers." It's exactly the way our relationship started.

As we reveal more cards, it becomes obvious to me that they're themed to our relationship and reference specific moments in our past. I point this out, and my boyfriend, a categorically terrible liar, denies this profusely.

I insist, "there's a card about fostering kittens for god's sake! You made this game! I don't know HOW, but you did!" He laughs and says his cards are normal, and I start to wonder if I inhaled too many auto-fumes today and am hallucinating.

We get to the final card, and it's a simple prompt -- "Do you love me?" -- with four choices beneath it. The final choice stands out. "I have something I'd like to share with you..."

It's at this point (and you probably already guessed it) that he asks me to stand up, and he gets down on one knee, and he proposes. I cry, I say yes, and before he can put the ring on me, I exclaim as if possessed, "I KNEW YOU MADE THIS GAME!"

He laughs, we put the ring on, and he explains that he contacted the CREATORS OF THE GAME to ask if they would let him try to make fake cards to propose to me. They loved his idea so much they offered to design the cards for him so they'd look real!

So my boyfriend wrote all the copy, the game company designed every single card, then my boyfriend got the cards printed and hand-cut rounded edges into every card so they'd look real. AND BOY DO THEY, which is why I felt like I was losing my mind!

So I'm a happy mess and he reminds me we do in fact have dinner reservations to get to, so we head out. We arrive and they take us to our table, but there are two people already sitting there & this is not a shared-dining-experience sort of place.

The people at the table turn around & I realize they're MY PARENTS. I burst into tears & am even more of a mess. They coordinated with my boyfriend to fly in and surprise me. The restaurant staff was in on it and everyone is thrilled and teary-eyed.

So what started as a frustrating, no-win day, ended with my boyfriend proposing through a one-of-a-kind board game we'll be able to play for the rest of our lives. And that's a nice reminder that things can turn around and that I'm very, very lucky.

Thank you everyone for your kind words, I feel so overwhelmed with joy for so many reasons! A very special thank you to @FogOfLoveGame for helping him make this happen -- because of their kindness and help, I've got the most perfect proposal I could have ever asked for! 😭💕