Rambling Rhodes

Ringing Sensation

As has been mentioned before in this corner of the InterWebs, I am now a married man. Generally-speaking, I've found married life is pretty much like regular life, with one very glaring annoyance: the wedding ring.

You see, while my wife just couldn't wait to sling a diamond ring upon her finger, about the last distraction I wanted in my life was a piece of jewelry upon my hand. I explained, in great detail, over and over again, why it's not a good idea for me to wear a ring.

Quite simply, any ring, on any of my fingers, is way too much of a temptation for my rampant, self-diagnosed adult ADD. I knew, from prior--short-lived--experience, that rings and I are not an ideal mix. For a brief week back during my college years, I tried wearing a decorative ring because one of my roommates wore one and I thought it looked. . . I don't know. . . cosmopolitan, or something.

Within minutes of putting on that ring, I was taking it off, flipping it like a coin, spinning it on tabletops and, my personal favorite, trying to "walk" it between the knuckles of my right hand, back and forth. As I said, that ring lasted about a week, before I dropped it while doing one of my "tricks" and it rolled into a storm drain. Thankfully, that life lesson about ring wearing only cost me about $100.

I tried to explain all this to my wife but, alas, come my wedding day, I found she had, indeed, purchased a wedding band; and then she had the audacity to look surprised when, five minutes after the ceremony, I was absentmindedly flipping the ring like a coin. Personally, I was a little surprised it took me until the next day to start "walking" the ring between my knuckles, back and forth.

"You'll get used to it," is a common refrain I've heard from countless friends and family members, regarding the wonders of ring wearing, but they never would have said that if they had seen the look on my wife's face the other day when she walked into the porch, only to see me spinning my ring on a tabletop and having it batted back to me by one of our cats.

On the one hand, I think she was happy I was playing with one of the cats, which are household animals I generally try to ignore, but on the other hand I think she was also pretty well horrified to realize she'd married a man who isn't mature enough to even wear a ring responsibly.

If anything, the ring has only become MORE of a distraction over time, especially as I get better and better at "walking" it across my knuckles, which I have to admit is starting to look like a pretty cool trick. I keep imagining myself in Las Vegas at a blackjack table, walking my ring back and forth across my knuckles as I debate whether to "hit" or "stand."

I wonder how many storm drains there are in Vegas. . .

Posted by Ryan at August 25, 2008 02:53 PM | TrackBack