What it really takes

“Inspired” by the happy notion of friends hooking up and those getting married, it was one of those fabulous November Christmas-y mornings that I filed another dream under the “Prelude to the Rest of Your Life” folder.

If these serve an absolute prophetic purpose, I’d be the first to rush to Baclaran, and sing medleys of utter hope in hopelessness to wooden and porcelain saints, already addled with enough heartache and tragedy than they would like to see in their lifetime.

I think I was older at that time, and I was going on my daily business: delegating research project matters, and spewing out acronyms I presently know nothing about. I could hear the words “targets” and “CSS”, which are persistent benchmarks in the company I’m currently part of.

Looking on my laptop, by the admirable persistence of technology, I got a YM balloon from someone I apparently am absolutely in love with – I recall that warm fuzzy frog-in-throat feeling, though it was not accompanied by any face I am currently familiar with.

Apparently, he’s going to a conference in the US for work, and he was wondering if I could take a break and accompany him. I giddily typed out a reverberating YES! without even a glance at my calendar.

That was who he was already in my organizer status – a definite Green Light whenever, wherever.

Fast forward to Buena Park, California, where that piece of heaven called Knott's Merry Farm is. I have always wanted to go there since it opened, and we headed out as soon as we landed. While driving the hatchback rent-a-car, he would always haughtily comment, “I have work, I’ll be very busy after this and I don’t know when we can go out again.”

He then took me to this urban playground, where all the Snoopy and Charlie Brown concrete mammoths were. As usual, Snoopy was lazing on top of his red wooden house, and Charlie Brown was looking at him, his right index finger planted squarely on his chin, as if pondering how his pet can be so blasé about everything.

Staring at Linus’ 4-foot manifestation of his security blanket, the man I was with (he was hot and nerdy by the way) abruptly said, “I’ll be getting drinks, you want any?” and retreated to the crowd.

I know he was wearing glasses, because he kept removing them in the hot sun to wipe the unrelenting deposit of dust as he was walking away.

A good 20 minutes have passed, and still no sign of him bringing me a that red-blooded soda (shameless self promotion). I was already asking the other tourists and park personnel, when a big orb of foam and string blocked my view of virtually anything.

It was Charlie Brown (particularly his head that obscured the eye-scorching sun), and he was tapping me on the shoulder. As I began to ask if he has seen this man and then proceed to describe his dust-wiping ways, this Charlie Brown mascot gave me a bone.

Ah, not that kind of bone. It was made of plastic and had a clip-top opening.

As I opened this mysterious biological specimen, I discovered it contained a miniscule black velvet box. Sensing it may be a trick (as Americans exhibit extraordinary gusto in setting you up on camera), I looked at Charlie Brown, who was know bending on one knee, and struggling to remove his fabric head.

After a few seconds of wrestling with this fabric mush, Charlie brown is revealed to be the man I was looking for, the one who was cranky and haughty all the time going there, the one whose shoulder I drooled on when sleeping on the plane, the one who asked me if I would be willing to take a break from work.

With his left arm crooked over the mascot head and his right fuzzy hand now holding my left hand, Charlie Brown just asked me to marry him.

Amidst smiles and AWWWs from my friends and my mother upon returning home, I find out that he has been setting this up for months already and asking them all what would be the most ideal places where to take me to get engaged.

I think Sting sang at our wedding – a common element in my “Happily Ever After” folder.

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Why are great guys, specifically the hot and nerdy ones, already in relationships or are already married to equally fabulous female counterparts?

This has been a day of pagmamanyak from older colleagues in the morning of the team building session, but has been worth it when I, with much reckless suavity, sat beside Dante for the afternoon sessions.

We had a massage warm-up. I loved it when he guided my fingers to his temple.

That sounded really naughty.

Then he held my sweaty number-bruised hands and listened to me for at least 20 minutes. He cried because he was thankful for his life, contributed to by a wife who already did all of his Christmas shopping and wrapping.

Look at that appreciation. Made me sad that he was married, as communicated by that silver band on his left ring finger, which I conveniently chose to ignore since I started here.

He loved his wife dearly and married her at 25.

Hey, that’s my age now!

And yeah, he can carry on wearing brown corduroy pants. Hot and nerdy. Yummm.

During dinner, he sang that awesomely heartbreaking ballad “Bakit Ngayon Ka Lang?” That really was the final kick in the face.

I finally decided to retire for the night, and ask if God will send me a similar package (unmarried, but with equally significant hot to nerdy ratio, of course) in 2008.

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Happy Christmas, everyone! =) Here's to a fabulous 2008.