Monday, February 17, 2020

Wedding Ring

My husband has decided he should "get credit" for "not losing" his wedding ring. He told me this the other night like he had saved a bus of children from going over a cliff.

"I feel like you haven't adequately recognized how amazing this is," he told me.

To clarify: I have been married to this particular husband FOR FIVE MONTHS.

I told him I was deeply concerned that he thought this was praiseworthy, mostly because this meant he expected, and continues to expect, that this thing I put on his finger would go missing in very short order.

"We all know this is going to happen at some point," he said in a tone that also screamed "I have literally lost five driver's licenses since I met you."

I would be lying if I said I hadn't worried at least a little about the fate of that ring. I remember wondering about this when I bought it. Skylar does tend to lose stuff. We both know this. One time a relative sent him a $100 bill in the mail for some life milestone and in one single move he pulled it from the envelope and stuck it in my pocket. "I'll misplace it immediately if I set it anywhere else," he had told me.

I got the ring at a jewelry store in the mall just below my office.

"What's your price range?" the man had asked.

Just then I noticed a teenager wearing a BYU hat walk in. He was with his mom. "I need to buy an engagement ring," he told the woman standing behind the case of diamonds.

His mother was beaming and holding onto his elbow.

"How long have you been dating?" the sales clerk asked him.

"We met three weeks ago," he told her.

"What took you so long?" she responded in a completely even tone and without looking up at him.

I looked back at the man who was helping me. "Enough to show I care, but not enough to cause me stress when he loses it in three months," I told him, feeling very 35.

I explained to Skylar that while, yes, I also knew it was quite possible he would shed this token of our love in a moment of thoughtlessness in short order, I didn't think his five-month ability to avoid the probably-inevitable fate merited praise.

"This is just like a serial killer demanding a prize for going half a year without murdering someone," I told him. He said that was not a fair analogy, and furrowed his brow at his comparison to a serial killer. I hate that he's getting better at arguing.

I became concerned a little while ago that he was becoming reckless. I started finding the ring in odd places in the house.

"I see you've decided not to be married to me today," I've told him during a few of these encounters.

He says he doesn't like to wear it to the gym.

"Aha!" I tell him, like I've caught him in infidelity. I almost immediately stop caring and start thinking about something else as he facetiously explains he's worried about scratching it "from pumping all that sick iron."

I don't care about him taking it off to do some gardening or wash dishes or have his affairs, etc. I just wish he would find one place to put it so there would at least be a habit associated with the disassociation. As it is, the ring ends up in obscure places--places that would be easy to forget.

"I'm pretty good at remembering where I put things!" he tried to defend himself last week just before I reminded him he had recently lost my car keys and implicitly searched the refrigerator to try to find them. "Maybe I put them in here," he had told me, like this was a perfectly reasonable place to put car keys.

If I'm being honest, this has probably all been a little good for me. I've lost sleep over worrying that I misplaced something totally replaceable. Maybe he's helping me have a little more perspective on what actually matters. It may not be healthy that I know exactly where every piece of paper I've received in the mail in the last decade currently resides.

I suppose I should give him a little credit for not losing his wedding ring, even if it's only been five months. Maybe he deserves some praise for not doing the thing he so naturally does. It's totally possible I'd be better off if I spent less time furrowing my own brow and wondering how I could maybe be a little more like him.

This will probably all work out just fine, as long as he doesn't misplace me.


This time in Strangerville, how do you deal with conversation lingerers? Also, Eli tells the story of what happened when his parents decided to take the family to see Titanic in 1997.
Story
Titanic, by Eli McCann
Music by Ayla Nereo
Production by Eli McCann & Meg Walter

~It Just Gets Stranger

21 comments:

  1. Reading this was eerie. I am you, Eli, and my husband is Skylar. He wouldn't let me buy him an expensive ring because he was "definitely going to lose it within the year". Every time he misplaces it I dramatically bemoan my return to singlehood. He frequently would talk about how amazing it was that he hadn't lost it yet. He somehow managed to hold on to the ring (i.e. manage to find it after multiple occasions of losing) for 5 years of marriage. Then he lost it again. It was missing for a month. He called every place we've every visited in our entire lives, combed the entire state and all the neighbors as well. He declared that if we ever did find the ring he wouldn't wear it again, in order to keep it safe, and requested a replacement for his birthday. I found the ring on the floor of the office... true to his word he hasn't worn it, it sits on the tail of a dragon statue in our bedroom. Instead he wears 1 of 2 very nice looking, $10, backup rings I found on Amazon. He says to tell you it's completely eliminated all ring related stress and highly recommends it. That was a really long commment... especially from someone who never comments... oh well.
    Love,
    The lady who almost named her baby after you 2 1/2 years ago except you didn't make her laugh hard enough to go into labor at your strangerville show so she named her Jessica instead

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  2. My husband lost his ring one month after we were married. He said he thought he lost it at the park near our house. We spent hours across multiple days looking for that thing and eventually considered it a loss, especially after the grass at the park had been mowed a few times. Then a couple of months later, I took my cousin's kids to the park and lo and behold I saw a glint of metal and found it! So yeah, I think Skylar will probably lose it at some point, but it may be found again!

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  3. Wait until he gets to the part of his training p0where he's sticking his hands in bodies. Maybe get him a chain to wear it on then? Because that baby's going missing.

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  4. I take my ring off all the time. I hate wearing it at home - especially when I cook or clean. However I have a habit of leaving it odd places. Funny enough I have only ever lost it once. I was at a yoga class. I was utterly lost for a week until I found it in my gym bag.
    My husband however is on ring #3 - I finally bought him some of those silicone ones so if he breaks or loses one he can just get another out of his sock drawer! :)

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  5. My husband lost his a week after we returned from our honeymoon...2 weeks after we got married.

    He was throwing our dead Christmas tree into our pond, and the ring went with the tree. 🤦‍♀️

    He got a silicone band, which lasted a few months. However, he has a bad habit of chewing on things (yes, I'm talking about my husband, not my dog), and he would nibble on the band while watching TV. He ended up chewing it enough that it tore off his hand. I gave up after that.

    Clarifying - I gave up on the search for a ring that he'll wear. I did not give up on the marriage.

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    Replies
    1. I’m sorry, but imagining a grown man sitting on his couch and chewing his wedding ring OFF HIS FINGER made me laugh out loud

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  6. The Titanic story on Strangerville this week is bomb. As always-perfect music choice as well.

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  7. I thought men's wedding rings were just like carnival goldfish. They die (the fish, not the husband) and you replace them so no one notices.

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  8. My husband lost his wedding ring about five months in. The jewelry store where I bought it had closed every store in the state in the interim. On a trip from almost-Canada in Washington to almost-Mexico in California, I found another branch of the store and bought my husband a copy of his ring. He found and lost both copies of his ring several more times, before we decided to go with rings from Amazon for $20 or less.

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  9. I had a roomate in college that lost her keys. We turned our entire apartment upside down looking everywhere. She had to find a different ride to wherever it was she was going (i'm sure a test of some sort). When she came home she asked if we had found anything and went to the freezer to drown her sorrows in ice cream she had bought the night before. When she pulled the plastic bag with the Ben & Jerry's out of the freezer, something jingled. It was her keys. Don't discount looking in large appliances for lost objects. Sometimes long shots are right.
    Also, I'm 1000% sure I'm going to lose my ring when I get married. I barely wear my engagement ring as it is. I have sensory issues and I need to take it off or it's all I can feel and suddenly I can't breathe. I have already expressed to my fiance' that we needn't invest in expensive jewelry. Let's keep it simple, and replaceable. Nobody will know but us.

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  10. I’m always praying to St Anthony to help me find lost items. It works great!

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  11. My husband (whose birthday it is today in a completely unrelated tangent) destroyed his titanium and platinum ring 3 months into our marriage because a 2 ton machine dropped onto his hand at a job site. In his defense - the ring probably saved his band, but it had to be cut off his finger. A week later he put a pair of pants in the wash and when I took them out of the dryer I found the engraved pocket watch I’d given him as a wedding gift in the dryer (and completely destroyed) as well......

    Give Sky some credit - he lasted 2 month longer than you told the jeweler you thought he would!

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  12. What song did you use on the podcast? I can’t pick out lyrics to save my life, but I am loving it!

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    1. Here you go! https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ayla_Nereo/By_the_Light_of_the_Dark_Moon/Ayla_Nereo_-_By_the_Light_of_the_D_3

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  13. He needs a chain to thread it on when he takes it off. I do this while pregnant because my fingers swell, and it lets me keep wearing my rings - just around my neck instead of on my fingers.

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  14. FYI - The masked singer is on season 3 now. You can watch it on Hulu. This season so far the Taco is my favorite!

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  15. My husband lost his ring after 15 years. Then he proceeded to lose two more over the next 6 months. He has a tattoo now. Whenever the subject comes up he cheerfully says "But the tattoo will never fall off!" It's the only ink he has.

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  16. My husband lost his wedding ring on the WAY to our honeymoon.

    Sigh.

    (We went through five or six or seven after that one too. We did finally solve the problem: he has a wedding ring, but he never, ever wears it.)

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  17. I lost my wedding ring while shopping for sheets at Bloomingdales. I'm convinced that I put my hand into a package of sheets to feel the softness and the ring decided to stay with the sheets. I never found the ring, but got divorced a couple years later, so I guess I didn't need it. I really did love that ring though. Aside from my son, it's the best thing I got from that marriage.

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  18. Ever considered investing in "Tile"s? https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/products?utm_campaign=830750117&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=341425633155&utm_term=tile-e&adgroup=45437686794&&gclid=CjwKCAiAy9jyBRA6EiwAeclQhCfwvoor2UHpb3DT6t8DhuooDoZtGw5I887vWI_FuUSm4dpkjp4sOxoCW4EQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

    I don't think they've made one small enough for a ring, but licence, yes, keys definitely.
    I need to buy one for my bike, I could track it if it ever got stolen.

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