Page 66 of Meet Stan

I think we were closing in on our six-month anniversary—that would be our real anniversary, and not the start of the fake relationship—when it hit me that the next logical step was to ask her to marry me.

I didn’t want to do something lame like have the ring in a glass of wine at a French restaurant or something like that. I decided to consult with experts on the matter, namely her parents.

Mr. and Mrs. Newman were more than willing to help. They told me that there was something of a tradition in their family of practical jokes. The more that I surprised and tricked their daughter, the better. Or so they believed.

Besides, my last prank didn't turn out quite as I planned it. Don't get me wrong, I was happy with the results, but I still wanted to prove that I still had it.

We tried to come up with an idea of how to totally surprise her. I shot down the idea of any kind of party or dinner as being too obvious. Her father wanted me to do it at work, and I hated the idea. I loved work, but I didn’t want the boardroom to be the place I popped the question.

Too many skanky broads had been banged on that table—not by me, of course. I had class.

Finally, we settled on a plan so devious that there was no way she would ever be able to see through it. I needed their help, as well as that of Jack and her handy disguise kit.

The plan was pretty simple. I would become, with the aid of prosthetics, clothes, and (hopefully) good acting, an old, irate dry cleaning customer with a complaint.

I would demand to speak to the manager, and Ivy’s family would conspire to make her the one to have to deal with me. Just when I was raising hell and she got to the point where she was going to throw me out or call the cops, I would suddenly go down on one knee, pull off the disguise, and pop the question.

As the appointed day drew near, I grew increasingly nervous. Ivy was sharp as a tack, and she knew right away that something wasn’t the same with me. She knew I was up to something, even if she didn’t necessarily know what that was.

I coordinated things with her family. They would see to it she was manning the counter at the dry-cleaning shop around four PM, the slowest part of the day. I would meet with Jack at one PM and begin my transformation into a cranky codger.

I gave Ivy the slip at the office and snuck off to Jack’s place in the village. She sat me down in a chair and blew air out of her lips, stirring her bangs.

“What’s your problem?”

“Your face is all wrong.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“For the prosthetics I have, you fucking goofball. Geez, vain much? Your hopefully soon-to-be fiance thinks you’re cute, that’s all that should matter.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Oh, I’m going to work miracles as usual.” She made a rectangle with the thumb and forefingers of both hands and put me in the middle of it. “Okay, let’s make you into a huge pain in the ass.”

She applied a fake chin and jowls to me, held on with spirit gum and hope. Then she layered makeup on top of that, helping to even out my complexion. A gray-haired wig, and bushy beard helped complete my look. At least, from the neck up.

I slipped into a pair of pants so ugly they’d be disallowed on a golf course for the blind. They came all the way up past my waist and navel, practically to my nipple line. I put on a collared shirt and tucked it in—of course.

We had about an hour before I had to meet up with Ivy for our little encounter. So Jack spent that time teaching me to act old. Mostly, it involved moving slower than I did normally. I was supposed to think of my body as something that had been broken a few times, and I was taking it easy with the chassis so to speak.

I drove to Staten Island and parked my car a good block away. Then I shuffled down the sidewalk to the tailor shop, a ticket clenched in my hand.

I had to wonder about Ivy’s parents. They were the ones who had come up with the rather devious ticket. It was designed to be not only incomprehensible, but utterly undecipherable as well. It would frustrate her to no end, and I could pretend to be more antsy than ever.

Remember, her parents put me up to this shit. I just went along for the ride.

I spotted her standing behind the counter. I stopped by the window and grinned, then put on my best grumpy face and shuffled into the shop.

She smiled at me as I entered, counting change out of her hand into the till.

“Hi,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll be with you in just a moment if that’s okay.”

She went back to counting the money in her hand. I came up and slammed the ticket down on the counter and glared at her from behind my coke bottle thick glasses.

This was it. The moment of truth. Would my disguise pass muster? Or would she see through it immediately?

“It’s not okay,” I snapped in a reedy voice. “I’m a customer and I demand to be treated like a priority.”

---