With This Ring...

Recently, I spilled some stain/varnish on my hand and it got underneath my wedding band. With some generous use of hand soap and vigorous twisting and pulling, I got the ring over the “slightly larger” knuckle than it had been 42 years ago. After removing it and cleaning off the residual stain, I kept the ring in a jewelry box, thinking that I would have it resized to fit better.

In the meantime, I was walking around...nekked. No ring. One of the common themes on old TV was for someone to surreptitiously remove his wedding band and stow it for later use.  This was before cheating on a spouse became almost normal behavior. The wandering spouse, usually the male of the species, would then conduct his clandestine activities unencumbered by the telltale jewelry.

So I was taken by surprise, years ago, when Dr. Dunn, the pastor who married us, took my ring and then asked, “Jim, do you accept this ring as a token of Bev’s love, fidelity, and devotion to you?”

Huh? I had paid pretty good attention to the weddings I had attended. I figured that if I was not on the ball, I might miss the call for cake and punch. So this formula was not the one that had been intoned many times before.

“Bev, do you accept this ring as a token of Jim’s love, fidelity, and devotion to you?” She did, and we was hitched.

It felt, well, like I was naked without the ring. Not that I was inclined to wander, but as noted before, that bit of gold had been holding down that digital post for over four decades. I felt comfortable with it.

So imagine our surprise, when we went into Wal-Mart for some supplies and they did not have the brand we needed. (Had a coupon, actually.) As we were leaving, empty handed, we “randomly” passed the jewelry counter and happened to glance into the case and there was a “fake” wedding ring. You can order these online for a fraction of the cost for gold or platinum and they look pretty good. Well, this one, tungsten for the chemists, was sitting there and cost less than half of the ones online.

(I had looked as a stopgap until I got the gold resized.) Well, it looked nice, and on a whim we asked what size it was. The lady behind the counter reported that it was size 12. That was what I “needed.” Coincidence, or direction?

So I am ringed again. And this one is wider than the old, so it even covers up the groove left by the 42 years of a small ring. And speaking of grooves, I always wondered how the wandering spouse (WS) explained that to his potential paramours? “No, I’m not married. That is from my fraternity ring.”

 I had a class ring about a decade before I got married and after just a few months of wearing that, I had a groove. If I left it off, it was obvious to anyone who saw my hand. A ring large enough not to “groove” my finger would slide off.

So how did WS get away with it anyway? I have a feeling that 1) he probably did not, 2) the new paramour probably had less compunctions than he did, especially if he had any money, and/or 3) it probably did not matter anyway, because he was on the way to the specialty lawyer.

How ironic that, under Dr. Dunn’s vows, SHE was the one who was free to gallivant around when his ring was “resting.” Isn’t it funny how reality comes back to bite us when we play fast and loose with the truth?

“As this ring, a circle, has no end, so your love and devotion should never end.” Dr. B. Dunn. Notice that I described myself as “ringed.”  The only thing that changed was the weight on my left hand.