We're starting our Happily Ever After!

In January of 2016, a dazzling number of silicon transistors flew up and down, indicating that a chunk of JSON data had been added to a NoSQL data store in the Northern Virginia server cluster. A few milliseconds later, cell towers transmitted a push notification to a smartphone, held in the hand of a young woman. This notification alerted her to the presence of a new message within her dating application. The message's contents caused her to truly burst out laughing, and immediately inform her friends that she had "just met {her} future husband!" It was love at first byte. Over the next several days, as silicon transistors danced and notifications flew, the young woman and the young man who authored the original message got to know each other better. They were both eager to meet the person behind the witty, self-deprecating jokes on the other end, so they made plans to go ice skating on a cold January night. As their phones rested, the two circled the ice, chatting about their lives and their dreams until the rink closed. When it did close, the two continued their date over hot chocolate and Mexican food. Two days later, a winter storm coated Washington DC in an apocalyptic 2 feet of snow. Southerners stockpiled batteries and calculated how long they could survive on canned tuna and meltwater. Northerners scoffed and bragged implausibly about how their hometowns get ten times as much snow every Tuesday afternoon. And as the snow fell, a soon-to-be couple defied winter storm warnings to meet up and play skee ball. Quickly, adventure dates and quiet evenings together became the norm. The couple slowly confirmed what they had suspected the first time their phones buzzed: that they wanted to be together forever. So they announced this to the world, and their phones buzzed again with congratulations from friends and family. And within those buzzing phones, the notifications and the silicon transistors smiled at each other, celebrating a job well done.