1. I didn't know that about the history of lobsters. thanks.

2. Is that Audrey Tautou?

Dom Perignon Story:

I had no idea how to pop the question to my wife (then girlfriend). I walked around for at least a week with the ring in my pocket in hopes that serendipity would lend me a hand. It never did.

My girlfriend and I had recently put a deposit down on a small apartment in a historic home in downtown Ann Arbor. It was under major renovations and we were to be the first couple that would ever live there. We were excited. We would occasionally decide to see if the door to the place was open and sneak in and go upstairs and hang out in our future apartment amongst the construction rubble.

At the time I was managing a restaurant, working 70 hours a week and pulling in $35k a year. Not exactly rolling in cash. I finally came up with an idea on how I was going to propose to her. I went to the property management company and got their permission to set up a table in our future apartment, with a white table cloth, candles, strawberries, truffles and of course a bottle of Champagne.

The day before I was to propose marriage, one of my regulars came in to the restaurant. I told him about my plan and he congratulated me and asked "what type of Champagne are you using"? I said proudly, "Cliquot" and he said, "no you're not".

The morning of the proposal, he walked in to the restaurant and handed me a brown grocery bag and said, "congrats, here... do it right". In the bag was a bottle of 1990 Dom Perignon. -It was one of the nicest gestures I've encountered.

Later on my girlfriend and I got in my car to go to my parent's house for dinner. I was about to suggest that we stop by our future apartment to see if we could sneak in, when she said, "why don't we stop by the apartment" -THERE you are serendipity!

Of course the door was open. We walked up the stairs, she opened the door and saw the table with the lit candles, the strawberries and the Champagne on ice surrounded by the 2x4's and table saws of the construction. She closed the door quickly thinking she walked in on someone else's romantic experience and turned to me guiltily. I was already on one knee.

She said yes and we drank the best bottle of Champagne I'll ever have and watched the longest sunset in the history of sunsets. It was awesome.

But no bottle will ever taste that good again, nor should it.

I became good friends with the man that gifted us the bottle and I credit him for many of the successes I've had in life. He acted as a mentor to me when I was younger. Writing this now makes me realize that I should do the same for someone that I find promise in, it made a tremendous difference.

Biggest lesson he taught me, "you create your own luck in life". -So damn true.

Anyways, that's my Dom Perignon story.