You never see it coming...

I don't know if you're a fan of (the new, but now finished) Battlestar Galactica series, but the main points of the show that are important for understanding this particular story are that 1) the show is awesome, and so a ton of our friends would get together on Friday nights and watch it, and 2) there are robots called Cylons. Some of the Cylons evolved and look like humans now (sneaky!), but the old-style ones have this red light that goes back and forth where the eyes would be on their helmet, bwaaah, bwaaah, bwaah, etc. Kind of like KITT, in Knight Rider, remember? Here's a video.

So we have this friend, UnBob. UnBob got engaged last summer, and as seems to be prevalent amongst married or soon-to-be-married folks, started bugging all his friends in relationships to get married too. Which consisted of just me and Airbear. When properly motivated (e.g., drunk), unBob kept bringing up this idea. A few weeks before this past season of Battlestar resumed--a big deal, since it was going to be the last season of the series--he said, "Oh, he's totally going to propose to you at the Battlestar premier!" and, a few drinks later, "He's going to propose with a Cylon helmet instead of a ring!" Ha. That UnBob sure is funny.

A couple weeks later, premier approaching, UnBob was once again 'in his cups' as they say[1], and absolutely positive (and irritatingly insistent) that his scenario was going to play out. Telling him to stuff it didn't work this time, and he was so convinced that he was willing to bet drinks on it. 1 drink for episode 1, 2 drinks if it did/didn't happen by the second episode, and so on. Note that he didn't have any kind of inside information from Airbear (far from it, in fact Airbear wasn't allowed to know about the bet), he was just drunk and foolhardy. I took the bet, 99% sure that I was going to win anyway (and thus sure of a bunch of free drinks), and 1% concluding that even if the 'worst' were to happen, bet-wise, I'd have to buy UnBob 10 drinks on the last day of the season if Airbear proposed. And shoot, if something like THAT happened, I'd probably be buying everyone ten drinks!

Fast forward to five weeks into the series. As usually happens when drunks make bets, UnBob was losing. In fact, he was losing so badly that he was owing me drinks faster than I (and my friend!!) could drink them. He started getting that weepy puppy dog look they put on the Hallmark "sympathy" cards every Friday night when we'd hit the pub after watching the show. And while I knew Eagle would have said to stick it to him, make him pay, teach him a lesson for making stupid bets - it's the Leo way, after all - I am a nice kid at heart and I was starting to feel guilty about bankrupting poor UnBob. After all, I know Airbear a lot better than he does so I really had inside information, in a way. And I had already gotten five weeks' worth of free drinking on Fridays. But ya know if you gotta listen to someone remind you about the fact that you didn't get proposed to, I guess there should be some kind of payment for that.

I enjoyed the rest of the run of the show. Some fans had some complaints with it - I'm sure that's always the case - and of course the guys wanted to see more spaceship battles and less talking, but I thought it kicked ass. (I'm hoping that when the series comes out on DVD it's in a metal box shaped like a robot head with a red light eye that flashes back and forth.) I also have to say that no series finale is ever going to come close to that one. One big spaceship flew into another big spaceship, lots of flying and shooting, some nukes, they finally killed off the president (OMG I was waiting for that the whole show - hated her!), and they found a nice planet to live on. But the best part happened after the credits.

I had actually gotten up and gone to the kitchen to get this bag of little ceramic ramekins and random ingredients I'd left at Eagle's the time before, and most of our buddies were getting up to go to the pub. But then Airbear said loudly, "I have an announcement to make!" and everybody stopped breathing and didn't move, because Airbear never talks, and especially not loudly. I turned around and stepped back into the living room to see WTF could possibly be going on and he got down on one knee and opened up a black velvet ring box.

And I saw this.

I have to be honest: my immediate thought was that he was just frackin' with UnBob about the bet (because we'd canceled it already and now he wouldn't win).

My second thought was oh, shit, shit, talk Nitza talk you're supposed to say something!

I dropped everything on the floor and made quite a racket (between the keys and the ceramic dishware, which I'm surprised didn't shatter all over the floor) and just sort of dove at Airbear to hug him/bury my face in his shoulder and said of course. Everybody was yelling and clapping and I was crying, obviously, and shaking and just a big huge mess.

And no, UnBob didn't know about it either - it was a total surprise. I did buy that kid a drink, though, and he enthusiastically takes credit for instigating the whole thing. He also says he's going to be a Cylon usher in our wedding. We'll see about that part ;)

[1] He really doesn't drink all the time - just when I see him.