I got a kick out of a hobby news item from over the weekend that detailed a unique marriage proposal engineered by a collector in Arizona.

The guy, Mike DeRose of Chandler, Ariz., teamed up with Chris Carlin, Upper Deck’s hobby marketing manager, to plant the “proposal,” including the inserted diamond ring, into a pack of the company’s Ultimate Collection.

(An Ultimate Collection card is shown at right, though not the ersatz one that included the proposal and the wedding ring.)

I’m not overly sentimental when it comes to baseball cards or wedding proposals, but I do often admire the ingenuity that some bachelors employ in finding memorable ways to pop the question. This one I thought was cool enough to prompt me to include the YouTube video link, which is below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVoMiapMTm0

Always eager to find the dark cloud in any silver lining, the news also elicited a bit panic as I pondered some of the various ways such an inventive plan might be put to various less laudable undertakings.

It would be just my luck, for example, to open a pack of cards and find I had been named the sole beneficiary of an estate for a long-lost friend whose principal asset was a storage facility in North Dakota packed with 150 unopened cases of 1991 Fleer. Not that I have anything against canaries, mind you.

And while I realize that the nice people at the various card companies aren’t likely to cooperate with such venal enterprises, wouldn’t it be a bummer to open up a pack of cards and find a subpoena or a notification for jury duty?

Not that these are likely, but if a relatively nice guy like me can think up such awful scenarios, what do you think all those meanies out there are doing?

Could Pandora’s box contain a really gloomy top-loader?

Happy New Year!