…there lived a girl and a boy who loved each other very much. They wanted to get married, but were very young and the boy could not afford to buy the girl a ring. So the girl’s grandparents (who were very fond of the boy) offered to loan the boy some money to buy a proper engagement ring.
The girl and boy were engaged in a snowy field, illuminated by the moon, the ring sparkling under a sky full of stars. A year and a half later, a wedding band was added. For the next several years, the rings would rarely leave the girl’s finger. When she was a medical student, she even thought she could wear them under her sterile gloves in the OR, until a curmudgeonly old OB nurse informed her otherwise (she was not very nice).
The girl and boy eventually turned into grown ups. One day, the girl decided to be responsible and add her rings to their homeowner’s insurance policy. She took her rings to a local jeweler who inspected and appraised them. With a concerned look in his eye he informed her that her settings were loose and the prongs too worn to safely secure her diamonds. He suggested that she not wear her rings until they were fixed. Fortuitously, this jeweler possessed the skills required to appropriately fix her rings and offered to do so for several hundred dollars. The girl was sad, but was not in the mood to spend a lot of money that particular day. So she took her rings home and put them in her bedside table until she could get them fixed.
The girl, who was quite skilled in procrastination, went about her life wearing a substitute ring on her left ring finger, with every intention of having her actual rings fixed as soon as she could. The substitute ring was a simple silver band with a tiny diamond. While it served its purpose to reflect her marital status, it was no match for her engagement and wedding rings. She would often open the drawer of her bedside table at night before she went to sleep to see the little diamonds sparkle. With every intention of having them fixed…soon.
Two years came and went before the girl woke up one day with the necessary combination of time, motivation, energy and money to get a second opinion about her rings. She drove to the southern reaches of a town called Overland Park, to a different jeweler all together. Embarrassed about the lapse in time, she shared her story with a sales person and asked to have her rings assessed and fixed. The sales person examined them closely and couldn’t identify any obvious defects, but to be certain, she took the rings to her jeweler next door. A few minutes later, the sales person emerged with a smile and informed the girl that her rings were perfectly fine and did not need to be fixed.
The girl thanked the sales person profusely while managing to withhold the profanity laden tirade that was brewing in her head, having gone two years without wearing her beloved rings under the assumption her diamonds were about to fall out.
Now that the girl’s rage has dissipated, she enjoys looking down at her rings throughout the day, marveling at the sparkling diamonds and how they still look just like the flashes of cameras at a homecoming football game. And she still loves the boy very much.
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