The Ghost and Mr. Dude-Who-Would-Propose

My daughter shares her opinion of her mother's hair and her father's beard. I don't know if I should post this picture. I must never have looked in a mirror in the 1990's.

When my husband was courting me–which, incidentally, he never officially did because we were just friends. JUST FRIENDS. SERIOUSLY. Just friends who got engaged, but whatev. Just friends because I had one of those *angelic choirs singing in dulcet tones* AhhhhhhhhhAHHHHHHHHHHHHHahhhhhhhh *end angelic choirs singing*-types of experiences when we met. You know, the kind where you think you've met each other before, and it's comforting in a freaky sort of way because that probably means this is IT. And you've just been dumped so you don't want this to be IT. So you tell your future husband that as ballroom dance partners on the university (back up) team, you probably shouldn't date. And then he says–waaaay too quickly–"Okay." But what you thought he was going to say was, "What?! No! Only if you insist! I guess we can just be partners and not date. *weep*". And so then you pretty much want to smack him every time he asks you to do something as JUST FRIENDS.

Er . . . what was I saying?

Oh yeah, when my husband wasn't dating me, he took me to see a really great old flick for Halloween called "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken." Have you seen it? You should. It stars Don Knotts. And if that doesn't talk you into it then how 'bout this: it also stars a haunted old mansion, a creepy gardener, a beautiful woman with a beefy arrogant lummox-like boyfriend, the painting of a woman who keeps winding up with garden sheers stabbed into her ample bosom, and an organ that plays by itself. Most of which Don Knotts agrees to hang out with over night in order to prove to the Lummox Boyfriend and the Beautiful Girl, and the Whole Town While We're At It, that he ain't no wimpy, useless, also-ran. With hopes to get the girl in the end.

I am telling you, this is a great movie. We first saw it at the university cinema, where everyone had seen it 50 times, and so they would scream out advice to Mr. Knotts, but he never heard them. And then the girls in the audience would shriek with terror every time the organ would start playing its creepy music. And the guys in the audience would pretend to shriek whenever the gardener showed up. And everybody cheered in the end when . . . .*Not going to spoil it*

If I was irritated by my future fiancé's much-too-quick response to the assertion that we should just be friends and not date, it was sort of fixed by watching him get such a kick out of an old Don Knotts flick. I mean, clearly my man had a soft spot for the sweet old things in life. And that meant he'd probably do pretty well with kids. And me. If I could ever bring him around to seeing me as more than the Fall-Back-Date dance partner in his life.

Well I did. He had known it all along and was just being a dork. So we got married and had kids, and then showed them "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken."

It completely freaked them out. Not romantic at. all. And they wouldn't watch it for years. 

But that's okay. In the end of our story the great big lummox (my hub) did get the girl (me). And he didn't even have to sleep in a haunted house to do it. He just had to get a little bit of the Don Knotts in him and notice what he was missing.

And my kids? They've come around. We're all watching Don Knotts this year for Halloween as a family. No one scared. No one being goofy about the girl they're with. And everybody screaming advice to Mr. Chicken.

I guess this means we've arrived.