A MEATY PROPOSAL by Greg Lammers
It was good.
Angela had to admit. The hot dog was good. It was plump and firm, not too dry, not too greasy. Sitting in a store brand bun, with only a thin line of yellow mustard, it was easily the best hot dog she’d had tasted in years.
That wasn’t saying too much though. Angela didn’t care for hot dogs in the least. She could count on one small hand how many of them she’d consumed in her life.
It seemed silly but her lack of appreciation for hot dogs, mixed with her boyfriend Jacob’s unhealthy adoration of them had set off more than one instance of hurt feelings, tension, silence, and eventual wild nights of makeup sex.
She took another bite and stopped. She’d bitten down on something, solid. Angela pulled the mangled section that had just been in her mouth away from the rest.
Sticking out of the remaining hot dog was the tip of a finger topped with a purple nail.
Angela made the kind of face a young woman might make after biting into something unexpected in a hot dog her boyfriend had cajoled her into trying. She shot Jacob a quick look of wrath and pulled the finger out of the dog.
It was a woman’s finger, slender, just about the same size as her own. Besides the purple nail polish (cheap and gaudy Angela thought to herself) the digit sported a not too large, but tasteful diamond ring.
She gasped,”You shit!” She looked at Jacob, tears welling in her big blue eyes.
Jacob dropped to one knee and looked up at her, “Angela, will you spend your life with me and be my bride?”
“Yes,” she responded without hesitation, “Yes!”
She pulled him to his feet and flung herself into his arms. They stood in a tight embrace, for the eternity that two lovers enthralled with a joyous new chapter in their love hold each other.
After they pulled to within arm’s length of one another she looked into her hand. She held up the ring, and the finger it was on.
“Where’d you find it?” She asked.
“I can’t reveal all my romantic secrets,” he responded in a gentle, mocking tone, “It took some time to find a woman with the same size fingers as you.” He smiled to himself. Seeing her reaction – it was all worth it.
“I know you don’t like hot dogs,” he chuckled, “Let’s have a real celebratory dinner.”
He led his fiancée by her hand, newly adorned with her engagement ring, out of their apartment’s tiny kitchen to their bedroom where sat a folding table covered with a pristine white cloth. Upon it, on ice, was their elegantly presented dinner, minus one finger of course.