Wednesday, March 10, 2010

All the Single Ladies




I vaguely remember a movie (Sweet Home Alabama, maybe?) where the main fella takes his lady into Tiffany and suggests she pick out her own engagement ring.


That is not my life.


My XH surprised me with an engagement/wedding ring set; one that I had never seen previously, much less picked out. At the time, I hadn't even been ring shopping with girlfriends who wanted to think of options to pass along to their own fellas. Only one of my close friends had married, and she picked out her ring in Chicago's Diamond District. Over the years, I've since shopped with one of my girlfriends for an engagement ring, and been her "go-to guy" to point her fiance in the right direction when the time came. That shopping excursion consisted of one trip to Russell Korman, and an extended conversation with the lady behind the counter, who was wearing the biggest, flashiest engagement ring I had/have ever seen.


So, Secret Agent Man and I spent part of our trip to Vegas walking around the strip to different casinos. The weather wasn't great--a little grey and drizzly--so we spent more time indoors than out. Our last stop one afternoon was the Bellagio. If you haven't been, I definitely recommend checking it out. The Bellagio has beautiful Chihuly Glass installations, a superb Absolut Screwdriver, and a Tiffany & Co store. Until that afternoon, I only knew about the first of those attractions.


Did you know that when you're gambling, a waitress brings you free drinks? If Secret Agent Man is going to gamble, he is most likely to sit down for a game of Pai Gow--another mystery to me pre-Vegas trip. Ever the gentleman, he made sure to include me on his drink order. One for him, one for me.


He's played enough to know when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em (and when to walk away, and when to run), so we didn't spend a lot of time at the table. We walked around the hotel a little bit, looked at more art, and before I knew it, we walked right in to Tiffany & Co.


And he said something to the lady behind the counter.


And she reached underneath the glass and pulled out a very shiny engagement ring.


And I put it on.


To be honest, I'm not really sure what happened next. My brain was too busy shouting "what the. . .WHAT??" and also "OOOOHHH, SHINY!" for me to hear any actual words exchanged in the real world. It soon became clear that the lady had handed me a different ring than Secret Agent Man had asked for, because she handed me another one. And I put it on!


I was so bedazzled by the shiny that it took me a minute or so to notice that they were both looking at me, expectantly. Like they were waiting for me to say something. Since my mind was still blank, I ended up blurting out a really, really romantic "You are so drunk. He's drunk!"


I am all about keepin' it klassy, friends.


He wasn't drunk. The lady had asked me if I preferred the rectangular or the square. Oops.


Now, I'm not the type of person who ever dreamed about a specific "perfect" wedding or even played bride when I was a kid. Even going through wedding planning, and reading magazines, I still didn't get caught up in it. I'm an event planner: I planned my event. I never looked at rings, and didn't imagine myself with anything different than I had. Until I didn't have it anymore. Eventually, I realized that I do want to marry again. (One last time!) I let myself hope a little bit that it could happen for me, and had a few tiny imaginings about what I might want.


Like maybe I might like an emerald cut diamond. Something rectangular.


Imagine my surprise when that's exactly what the lady handed me! Evidently, Secret Agent Man had browsed Tiffany a time or two, had seen the square-stone ring, and liked the look of it. I guess he thought it would be fun to see how it looked on his lady. It was so shiny! I think they put enormous diamonds in the rings out for show behind the counter to lure a fella in to buying something bigger than he might ordinarily. The lady got a little pushy with him about sales tax in LV being less than sales tax in Texas, and she suggested that she would go ahead and write down the details for the ring I liked best, "just in case." I am pretty sure I gave him the crazy eyes right about then. Our 18th date was turning into quite an experience.

After my try-on, we went for gelato and back to the hotel room for a pre-dinner nap. As we were getting ready for dinner, he asked me how much engagement rings cost. I told him they cost what a person can afford. He wondered if that meant they might cost as much as his car, when he bought it new a few years ago. Ummm. . .what??

That's right, apparently the ring I tried on and liked best cost five figures. And the first number of the price was not a 1 or 2. I told him that was insane, and we had a little chat about how stores other than the big T have pretty rings that would probably cost less because they aren't a brand. But then I had to stop myself and tell him that I was not going to have an engagement ring buying discussion with him yet. He laughed, and said "You don't think we were actually shopping for engagement rings today, do you?"

You bet I didn't, mister. I'm going to need to try on many more than two rings on that shopping trip! You know, that trip a long time from now when it wouldn't be so crazy soon for that to happen. Right?

2 comments:

Monica said...

...too crazy early! But I have to admit, I totally thought that's where it was going.:P

Juicy said...

I swear to god, you are having more fun than anyone is allowed to. I wanna go to Tiffany and shop for rings!! :(

And the first # of my ring cost was a 1 followed by 4 numbers, but it ain't no Tiffany! haha!