Ave Maria Living Magazine | Issue #3 | Nov. 2016

it was Holy Week, so we were going to Mass all the
time. And then we got into a fight. I said something
aggravating to him, and Mike said: ?You?re going to
eat those words.?For some reason, I thought he
meant he was going to give me a swirly.?
At this point in the story, Mike and Lauren break out
laughing. ?How did you get that idea?? Mike
wonders. Lauren says, ?I don?t know. I thought you
meant it literally? that I was going to have to eat my
words.?
Mike takes over telling the story. ?No, what I meant
is that I was planning to propose.? Mike had ordered
the engagement ring and it was late arriving. ?The
reason why the ring got here late was because
Lauren had told me she had really fat fingers.? The
idea that Lauren has fat fingers borders on the
preposterous, but Mike took her comment seriously.
He contacted the ring dealer and requested it be
sized up for ?fat fingers.? The extra time to get the
ring sized caused it to come late in the mail. He was
anxiously waiting for the ring to arrive when
Lauren showed up at his house? a day before
expected. ?I was trying to surprise him,? Lauren
breaks in. ?There?s photographic proof of this,? Mike
goes on, ?that when she surprised me, she literally
jumped out of a trunk. And you can see it on my
face: ?Oh son of a gun. I?m not ready for you. I don?t
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have my surprise ready yet.?
When the ring finally arrived, of course all of Mike?s
family wanted to get a look at it. That?s what got
Mike and Lauren started on their fight. ?I had Nosy
Nelly over here,? Mike gestures to Lauren sitting
across their dining room table, ?nagging me about it.
And that?s when I said she was going to eat her
words. I was thinking, ?You?re going to be so
surprised, you dummy!? They?re both laughing again.
A few days later, after Easter, they took a drive up to
Niagara Falls, where Mike gave Lauren a swirly? just
kidding! He proposed. The ring was sized up so
large, Mike explains, that Lauren had to put a whole
pack of Band-Aids on her finger to keep it from
flying off into the Falls.
By summer, Mike was still looking for work and they
were holding off on setting a wedding date until he
found a full-time job. Since nothing was working out
in Rochester, he moved down to Florida to at least
be near Lauren. He started working an overnight
security shift for Moraya Bay (a high rise condo
near Wigins Pass Beach), and volunteering for
Habitat for Humanity in Immokalee. Lauren was
teaching fifth grade at Eden Park Elementary School.
That December, they decided to go ahead and get
married. ?I had a full-time job,? Lauren says, ?so we