One ring to rule them all

Obviously I didn’t post last night. Officially I was stuck in the East Coast travel nightmare caused by the weekend blizzard. A storm that I missed because I was out of town, which kind of sucks because I love watching it snow, except that it was for the best reason possible and being in the sun with the woman you love makes having to reschedule flights all the more worthwhile. Because I know that people are going to be asking I will write up some of the engagement stories over the next few nights. Tonight I’ll start with buying the ring.

Now I have to say up front that Kim and I decided months ago that we were going to be getting engaged. When we were in San Antonio at a bar and people talked to us we always had the same conversation.

“Are you two married?”
“No.”
“Engaged?”
“Kind of.”

Basically we knew that we were going to be getting engaged but didn’t know when or where and more importantly I hadn’t bought a ring. Mainly because I had no clue how you were supposed to buy a ring in such a circumstance.

Ok, I understood the concept of going to a jewelry store and buying a ring. I’ve bought other things from such stores before so I figured that this wouldn’t be a completely foreign process. But how do you find out someone’s ring size? Cutting off her finger seemed to be rather impractical and stealing one of her existing rings would raise the question of whether or not I was pawning it in order to pay for her engagement ring. But those are easy questions compared to the question of what type of ring would she like?

Because let’s face it I do not rank very high in terms of taste metrics. I am someone who has been known to where twenty year old t-shirts because I considered them to be lucky. Kim going through my closets resulted in five bags of clothes being donated to charity and two bags of clothes thrown out because they weren’t even fit for the homeless to wear. An engagement ring is not the sort of purchase you entrust with me. After some initial discussions with Kim’s best friend Stephanie we finally came to the conclusion that Kim and I would go and purchase the ring together. Since we already knew that we were getting engaged we figured it would be best to get the ring that we wanted as opposed to having it turn out to be a well intentioned but very bad surprise.

Kim and Stephanie did the ground work so by the time I got involved my job was basically to just show up, approve and purchase. When Kim picked me up to go to the jewelry store I tried to put up a calm face but was clearly freaking out inside as my attempt at conversation consisted of a thesis that I was proposing that one could create an analogy between Bon Jovi fans vs. Pearl Jam fans and Glenn Beck fans vs. Jon Stewart fans (a theory that while convoluted I still hold will stand up to further inquiry.) However, this is clearly not the most romantic sentiment in the world and Kim quickly figured out that I was going out of my mind. Which I felt was perfectly normal as this was going to be the biggest purchase of my life and I had no idea what form it would take.

Actually, it was the easiest process in the world. Mainly because we were offered champagne as soon as we sat down. I think that should become standard for all transactions. Shopping at Wal-Mart would be much easier if I was allowed to be hammered. Kim had picked out some amazing bands and stones and we quickly decided on the one that we wanted. It wasn’t one that I would have originally thought of but it looked absolutely stunning and we were just thrilled by it. I left there knowing that in a few days the ring would be waiting for me at my apartment to give to her, which just left one simple question: what in the world was I going to do knowing that this ring was just sitting at my apartment until I gave it to her? And how in the world was I going to give it to her? And that my friends, is a story for another night.

I’ll end with a romantic song though, because I am in that kind of mood. One of the best videos of the decade as well.