Her Version
Having had no fewer than 5 retinal reattachment surgeries and countless eye exams, Brevin is no stranger to Ophthalmologist appointments. He was overdue for his next routine exam, so Ilana nags and relentlessly nags Brevin to make his next appointment many times over the course of the early summer. Finally, on the sunny afternoon of July 12, 2018, Brevin casually meanders into Dr. Gayle Shimokaji’s office to check in on his vision progress. He sits down in front of an inconspicuously hung eye chart on the wall, and is asked by the Tech to read the first line: “it’s a B”. Read the second line: “R, E, V– hey, that’s my name! That’s so cool, can I take a picture of that?!”
In Brevin’s clueless excitement, the Tech tries to get him to read the remainder of the chart. Little does Brevin know that Ilana is hiding in that very room, in a closet in the back, with her phone recording what is unfolding. He finally reads the remainder, which he deciphers as: “Brevin, will you marry me? It’s Ilana. P.S. Hope you can read this.” Dazed, confused, bewildered, Brevin hears a rustling behind him and turns, only to see Ilana (in a very convincing white Opthamologist lab coat) emerge, grin from ear to ear.
Still stunned, they hug, Ilana asking “Well…?” To which Brevin replies, “Of course I’m going to marry you!” And surely there was some snarky back-and-forth afterward, wherein some light expletives may have been uttered, but we won’t say by whom. A pretty epic eye exam, if we do say so ourselves. We’re glad to say that Brevin passed with flying colors. But actually, he really did need a real eye exam to check on his progress, since this one ended up being a wash.
And did we forget to mention the rings? Why, hot dog themed, of course! For those of you unaware, the most embittered battle between Brevin and Ilana involves the highly debated definition of… a hotdog. Yes, like that of Hebrew National or Oscar Meyer. One of us believes that this compact tube of miscellaneous meats requires a bun to be officially considered a hotdog. The other, more correct one, believes that this amalgamous meat tube is a hotdog in and of itself, regardless of whether or not it is accompanied by a bun. Whose side are you on?
His Version
I look over to the detective and I start spilling. The outpour of honesty feels good, so I don’t hold back. “So Ilana’s been naggin’ me, goin’ ‘hey why dontcha go see that eye doc of yours’. And I’m all like ‘woman, why don’t you solve riddles about ancient astronauts and make me some puddin’!’ It is worth calling out, my dear detective” I say in a different accent and more relaxed tone, “that the concerns were just. I was overdue for an appointment, but there was no immediate nor critical need to drop everything and go.” The detective, in this case, is not actually a detective. I’m talking to Seamus, who is feigning interest.
It was a busy morning in the office that day. We were rolling out our philanthropy initiative with an event where we assembled gift bags for homeless children, complete with books and a stuffed animal per intended child. That sounds incredibly pretentious reading it out loud, but rest assured that the event was marred with technical difficulties and awkward social faux pas…es. What’s the plural of faux pas, faux passes? As of this writing I’m still not confident the matching was set up correctly. There should be a matching app for matching donations, where it matches you to someone that did a similar match. The logo can be a match book. Matchin’ Matches with Matches, brought to you by: lighters. Lighters: “invented before matches.” Google it.
As the launch wraps up and I’m still sporting the new initiative’s t-shirt, I jump on the ol’ office e-bike and ride my way over to the eye doc. Keep in mind, I’ve been casually Slacking Ilana on my end, which is an instant messenger tool primarily used within a work setting. So she at work, bruh. But as this story develops, you’ll note that the trust in this relationship is built upon a foundation of jello and vaporware. I have become a horrible paranoid monster. A mere visit to read an eye chart can lead to a regrettable verbal agreement.
So I go in per usual, doing my regular small talk of doing bad impressions and singing spontaneous songs of the heartland. I get sent back to the test room, which is a room dedicated to these cool, futuristic machines that take scans of your eyeballs. I’ve done these a dozen or so times and this was nothing new.
I was asked to read an eye chart. I’ve read dozens of these in the past months and have applied a rare technique called the “I’m doing a word find on a Kid’s Menu at Applebee’s but am instead looking for other words that randomly appear and not the words they ask you to find”. I need a better name for that, like, “blarkfloop”. On all the eye exams I’ve seen, I’ve been blarkflooping to find fun words that shouldn’t be there or randomly appear, like “why” in B W H Y F D or D G C A T P D so “cat”. You get the idea. If you don’t, please sign up for my Blarkfloop Newsletter, its only 12 shillings a fortnight. It’s not unusual to find words in eye charts, so when I saw a B R E, I thought hot dang, that’s my name! Let me take a picture! No one will believe this tall tale afterwards! I reach to grab my phone to take a picture and the eye doc was all like why don’t you keep reading and I was all like why don’t you start reading and she’s all like what you talkin’ about and I said I don’t know what are you talking about and then she mumbled something to herself to “hang in there your shift is almost over” and I’ll be honest everything after this was a blur. I remember reading the rest of the eye chart, my brain connecting the puzzle pieces, and this sensation of utter, concentrated, smelly confusion washing over me. What. What? What! What?! What. Like that.
In my non-existent peripheral on the left, this tiny person sporting someone’s lab coat appeared and she demanded to know my answer, which was rude. There was a lot of pressure on me and stuff.
Might I just add that apparently Ilana even disguised her car in the parking lot just in case for whatever reason I would investigate cars at the eye doc even though I ride my bike in.
In conclusion, Superman’s biggest flaw is a misguided and unfortunately inherent stubbornness to place Lois Lane above every other necessity in the world, regardless of severity. If there is a giant monster attacking Metropolis, I can guarantee you Superman will only strategically show up once Lois Lane is in peril while being on the scene, reporting on the monster’s urge to hug people but because he’s a monster people are running in fear. What a classic misunderstanding.
The Second Proposal
Cut to a few months later, December 15, 2018 to be precise. It’s 7:30 AM, an hour when no one in their right mind should be awake. And yet, Ilana was awoken with a simple envelope placed on her lap in bed. In this envelope, instructions, a clue, and a playing card with none other than ferrets on it. The instructions indicated a day of scavenger hunting would unfold, provided Ilana correctly solve each clue. And at the end, a grand prize would be awarded in exchange for the various ferret-cards to be acquired at each clue location.
Although the first clue did require a bit of assistance, eventually Ilana solved it, and she was taken to the upstairs hallway of the house, behind a priceless blank canvas. Behind that, another clue, which led her to the bottom of Marve’s (the ferret) favorite bed. The next clue required a car ride over to the Akili offices, and after some snooping in the boathouse, the next card and clue was found in a kayak. After this, a walk to very specific GPS coordinates was required. 
Google didn’t cooperate as expected, but the desired location was finally reached — none other than a random mailbox belonging to none other than Bilbo Baggins, situated in a swamp behind the Marin RV Park. Luckily the clue in this spot was not nabbed by any drug dealers who obviously heavily use this spot as their office, and Brevin and Ilana made their way to the last location.
The final clue led to Ring Mountain: It was where we had our “first date” and where we have hiked (at minimum) every January 1st since. And what better location to give someone a ring than on a mountain named for it. So Brevin got down on one knee, in the mud from the previous day’s rainstorms, and popped the question. Technically the question had already been answered, but the purple sapphire ring really sealed the deal. Ilana may have cried a bit…