In the Summer of 2019 Bree and I both attended the police academy together, but we had been sent by different agencies. Neither of us had really acknowledged the existence of the other until one fateful day. During one of our daily class exercise circuits, I saw a large beetle walking past. Thinking about how cool the beetle was, I picked it up and showed it to the guy next to me. Uninvited, Bree told me to not throw my new beetle on her. The thought of doing so had not even remotely crossed my mind. That was until she had finished her request and the thought of getting the beetle on her by any means necessary became all I could fathom. Moments later my window of opportunity arrived as she laid on her back to start doing sit-ups. Before she was even able to bend up to her knee, the beetle had been tossed through the air where it landed square on her chest. My initial joy of the moment was shattered by the blood-curling cries that erupted from my future wife. I quietly got into a push-up position to continue the circuit while I felt a glare from Bree boring into the back of my skull all the while hoping the instructors weren’t going to make me run as punishment. Moments later the glare subsided, and no instructors had shouted my name.

Fast-forward one week later to directly after a riot control class where we were wearing sweat-stained riot gear that also seemed to have been a mouse’s home at one point. While jogging back to the main building, and adding to the sweat stains, Bree came up to me and started making small talk with me. My first thought was questioning why this beautiful lady who hated me would want to talk to me. It didn’t take too long to realize that the timeless boyhood tactic of throwing bugs at girls during recess had paid off for me as it had for all men since the dawn of time.

Fast-forward another week forward and we were snuggling in the back of her car at the drive-in theater in Fort Collins. After that, the rest is history. By the time of our wedding, we will have known each other just shy of five years. Yet those five years will feel like nothing compared to the rest of our lives. At the end of the day, I have a rather large beetle to thank.

-Michael