Mrs. Likko and I were watching our neighbors’ house and pets while they were away on a few days’ trip. It’s reciprocal; they looked after our animals while we were at LeagueFest. We all save a lot of money on kennel fees this way. The neighbors just got an in-ground pool and spa. This is, of course, the very best kind of swimming pool in existence: your friend’s pool, that they let you use.
So the first afternoon they’re gone, Mrs. Likko and I are hanging out in the pool and enjoying the relief from the desert heat. And then we enjoy relaxing in the spa with some cool beverages, as the sun moves down towards the horizon. It’s a nice moment.
Then I look over and say “Holy shit! Where’s my wedding band?” It’s just gone. Not on my finger; I never felt it slip off. Had I lost it while we were out running errands earlier that day? Did it slip off in the pool? A visual inspection of the pool revealed nothing. Had it been sucked into the filter? And is that why when I went back to check on the pool again that evening, I found the spa mysteriously drained and non-functioning?
So now I had two stresses — I’d just broken my neighbor’s brand-new pool in addition to losing my wedding band.
Like a lot of men, I put on my wedding band and almost never take it off. It left an indentation on my finger that lasted all the way to the end of this story, an indentation still there today. Along with never taking it off comes never really thinking about its presence. It is simply a fact of my life, an omnipresence not at all unlike an organic part of my body. Its being gone was an unsettling shift in my very existence.
I felt naked without the band. Mrs. Likko accepted the situation with equanimity — of course, we’re still married, the loss of a piece of jewelry isn’t going to change that. Her plan was to wait until the neighbors got home to take their filter apart, and if it wasn’t in there, then just buy me a new one. Which is of course an eminently practical solution, but an emotionally unsatisfying one. I wanted my wedding band, the one my then-new wife had bought with her own money to present to me at our wedding ceremony, more for its sentimental value than its objective worth.
So after court, I came home to take care of the animals in our custody, both our own and the neighbors’. And I experimented with the surprisngly non-obvious configuration of valves on the pool pump, and got the spa filled again. So that’s been a relief. Wedding band or no, I wanted my neighbor to have the confidence to know that he would have a home in good shape after entrusting us with it.
But now that the sunlight was out again at full strength, there at the bottom of the pool I saw a silvery glint — my wedding band, which had made its way to the deepest part of the pool. A few minutes of wrestling with the brush and skimmer later, and it was once again on my finger where it belongs. I can stop being as upset with myself and ruminate on the emotional power of this symbol.
All’s well that ends well, I suppose. The picture at the start of this post is my wedding band, restored to my finger, moments after being fished out of the swimming pool. In the future, the ring will stay at home when we go swimming.
My ring stopped fitting very well when I was at maximum weight. I’d sometimes switch hands to deal with the itchiness. Sometimes it would have to come off altogether. That would lead to panic attacks on whether I knew where it was, until I’d start giving it to Clancy for safekeeping.
When the weight came off, it started not fitting in the other direction, and I had to just take it off entirely until I could have it refitted. Otherwise, there was the chance it would just slip off. After a while I got used to it not being there, but it took a surprisingly long period of time.
I’ve sort of accepted that it’s going to disappear at some point. My father lost his. Clancy would not be happy about it, but since she never knows what to get for our anniversary, in a way I’d actually be doing her a favor! (Rationalization already planned…)
The next time we get together, I will tell you the rather long story of our wedding bands, which involves no small amount of ridiculousness on my part.
I take mine off nightly. I’ve been married ten years now, and the wedding band I picked out is black titanium with a platinum inlay. (Yes, I have a black wedding ring. I love the look of it and so does my wife. I can’t recall why it’s black — something to do with how the titanium was treated or alloyed. It’s a true color, not a plating or such. Most people I know who got titanium rings did so because they do rough work with their hands. I did it because I wanted something a bit more unique, yet simple in design).
However, when I was selecting it, something the salesman said to me — whether true or not, I do not know — about the ring stuck with me. He said “Keep in mind, if it gets stuck, it’s easier to cut off your finger, remove the ring, and reattach it than cutting through that band. Less damaging to your finger, too”.
So I take it off nightly. Just to be sure. 🙂
Wore mine every day I was married, 27 years. Took it off when I wasn’t any more. Felt like the hole left by a pulled tooth. Felt around for it for over a year, subconsciously.
Sounds like you lost some weight and need to get it resized.
I recall a line from Gladiator: “This is a pleasant fiction, isn’t it?”
I take mine off when I play soccer, especially when I’m playing keeper. I’ve heard too many horror stories involving wedding rings and broken ring fingers.
When we still had cats, my wife lost her ring. It was just…gone. We searched and searched and couldn’t find it. Fast forward a few weeks and one of the cats is in the kitchen meowing up a storm. I investigate, and the cat is along one wall, crouched down, nose pointing at an object obscured by the (now thankfully gone) very busy pattern on the carpet. It was, of course, her ring.
The only time I take mine off is at the gym. I tie it to my sneakers. If I lost it I would move mountains to find it. I can’t imagine not having it. I often forget it’s there but when i think about it I must admit it makes me very happy.
I don’t wear mine except when I’m traveling. I’m always afraid it will fall off, which would be easy enough given that I’m extremely twitchy and it’s too big for my fingers.
Somehow, there’s only been one near miss, when we frantically searched a vacation cabin for a couple of hours before leaving, only to find it in a pocket of a pair of my jeans in the suitcase . . .
My finger outgrew my first two wedding bands (I’m not that fat, I just used to be cadaverously skinny), and now I haven’t worn one for years. I never liked wearing jewelry anyway. For a long time my wife didn’t wear hers either, for the same reason. It never seemed to bother either of us that much. Now she wears hers again, and I’m probably going to go buy another–my third. I guess we’re weird that way.
Is there a reason you don’t re-size? I can’t, I got a titanium band, but I thought pretty much every other metal was fairly easy to re-size?
Plinko,
I honestly don’t remember why we haven’t resized the original ring. The second one was just an inexpensive ring with a Celtic knot design–I really liked that better than the plain ring, but kind of assumed that it would be harder to resize because of the design. Anyway, I always kind of like change. For me, the ring is just a symbol for other people (keeps the chicks from hittin’ on me!), so I never developed a real emotional attachment to “the” ring. Which isn’t a criticism of people who do; I think they’re more normal, maybe emotionally healthier.
My wife’s ring has relevant personal meaning as a family heirloom. My ring we just bought and is plain, plain, plain. Even stripping the ‘family heirloom’ business, I look at wedding rings as easy conformity, which I am generally in favor of for freaks like me.
We’ve been married just over 9 months. In the early days, I took it off at night and in the shower and when I played basketball… I was terrified of letting anything happen to it. After a week or so, I got more comfortable and kept it on all the time. I thought I’d be annoyed by it, since I never wore jewelry save for a pair of novelty dog tags my wife got me while she was still in the service, but came to appreciate knowing it was there, plus it was just loose enough for me to fiddle with… something good for a fidgeter like myself. About 4 months ago I busted my finger good playing basketball and immediately took the ring off to avoid cutting off any circulation. I figured a week or two to let the swelling go down and we’d be good. Well, the swelling never went down; or, it did, but left some nasty scar tissue around the knuckle that makes the ring impossible to wear. We finally got back to the jeweler last weekend to get it resized and are waiting for her call. I wasn’t happy about all of this, but was less upset about it than my wife, as I knew accidents happen. And I still had it in my bedside drawer and took it out to play with every now and then. I’m excited to get it back. I am not excited that my wife is now using this in conjunction with the ankle sprain I’m still nursing to try to take basketball away from me!
Get Russell to write a post severely extolling the benefits of regular exercise for American adult males.
It took me a while to get comfortable with my engagement ring. The diamond felt big and I was surprised how often I would scrape against things. It drove me nuts that it would snag my clothes, scratch me or others I touched, and get caught when I ran my fingers through my hair. About halfway through my pregnancy it woul not fit, although I only gained 30 pounds altogether. I wouldn’t wear it after Junior was born for fear of scratching him. Now that I’m divorced, I doesn’t feel odd to go without. I keep it handy because it is super cute though. I picked it and out myself and will likely have it modified so that I can wear it on another finger, one day.
“It took me a while to get comfortable with my engagement ring. The diamond felt big…”
I don’t think my wife ever had that problem, LOL.
Same for Mrs. P.
Relatedly, she took it off about halfway through pregnancy and hasn’t put it back on since. I hope she doesn’t follow through with the second half of Miss Mary’s story.
My wife and I put ours on when going out in public, but we’re not big jewelry people, and so once we’re home, the ring and band are off.
I’ve had two rings. Neither lasted more than a month.
I should probably just never get married.
Enjoyed reading through this, very good stuff, regards . “Golf isn’t a game, it’s a choice that one makes with one’s life.” by Charles Rosin.
I take mine off when showering because it gouges the soap. I also take it off at night, not really for any reason I can identify. I like having habits.
At our ceremony we didn’t actually have bands. They seemed too conventional, too confining, and anyway we couldn’t agree on a design. We got them several years later, when we were thinking about parenting and wanted to look a bit more the part. They are simple, inexpensive, made of matte finish titanium (neither of us are gaining weight), and they are inscribed on the inside with one of the vows we made at our ceremony: “neither a master nor a slave.”
Oddly, I feel no more emotional attachment to this particular band than I might feel for the ink I would use to jot down the categorical imperative: It says something important, but it’s also replaceable. If I lost my wedding band, I would buy another exactly the same, and I wouldn’t get too upset about it.