Popping the question: At a dinner celebrating the fact that he had just passed his bar exam, the future president pretended that he didn’t see the point of marriage. Before his date could reach across the table and grab his throat, a waiter presented a dessert plate holding an engagement ring. “It had all been a ruse,” Michelle Obama wrote in her book, “Becoming.” “It took me a second to dismantle my anger and slide into joyful shock.”