GETTING STARTED - GETTING THE RING - Secret Agent of Love

You have just been transported four years ahead in our relationship. At this point, we had adopted a cat, had moved to San Diego, and had made no real headway on brokering world peace. I wanted to make Christa my wife, which may sound a bit chauvinistic or like there’s baking involved, but it actually meant that I desired to be with her forever and to contractually submit my feelings in written form to the government. In order to achieve this, I needed to ask for her hand, hopefully accompanied by the rest of her. This involved getting an engagement ring, and so the adventure began. 

I wanted to make the actual moment of engagement a complete surprise, but I also wanted The Ring to fit. I greatly prefer to ask for information directly.

“How fat’s your finger?”

But I have learned that certain phrasing and directness is not always appreciated. I have also learned that I need to hear something three times before it is committed to memory. Therefore, my first undercover activity was triple-verifying her ring size.

Why? I wanted to get it on her finger. Rings, I have found, are stocked in a size 6, which seems small, but probably enhances the size of the jewels, like bikini trunks on a Caucasian male. If your intended has stumpy fingers, she might not like The Ring to slide over the first knuckle only. I had the benefit of circumstance, as we were looking for pinky rings to knowingly gift to one another. Her pinky is about the size of a pencil; no ring stocked on department store dial-an-accessory stands was ever small enough. They stock sizes as low as a 5, which fit her ring finger. One down, two to go.

A week later, at an identical yet somehow different roto-accesorizer, roughly 4.3 miles northeast of the first, I said, “Here, try this one on.”

“It’s too big, but it fits my ring finger,” Christa replied.

“Well that’s unfortunate.” I replied, unduly proud of myself. Two down, one to go.

I obtained the third and final confirmation in the war-torn sale racks of the shoe department, later that afternoon. I picked up a pair of really nice boots (I based this purely on price) and said, “Look at these beauties in a five.”

“Sweetie, I need sevens,” she replied.

“Why was I thinking five?” I questioned.

“It’s my ring size,” she stated.

Data was locked and loaded. I considered it a victory. She probably had me figured out all along, but pretended not to. Good for the 007 in all of us.

Now I needed to pick a style. My first resource for comparison shopping was the Internet, the one-stop, I-can-get-all-my-Christmas-shopping-done-in-a-day kind of place. Then Christa and I had a discussion regarding Christmas shopping and how impersonal an Amazon box at your doorstep was.

“You can gift wrap it inside the box,” I said.

She responded, “How does it make people feel, sending them a brown box? It’s like getting dress socks or a three-pack of undies in your stocking at Christmas, which makes children cry, or saying, ‘I find you completely boring, like this brown box I selected for your present.’ No fun at all. If you even consider getting my engagement ring on the Internet, I’ll give it right back. There is no thought or feeling in that at all. I want to know you went to every single store and looked at every single ring, until you found the perfect one, and you were sure there was none better.”

Fear hit. My cover had been compromised. Divert attention.

“My mom doesn’t mind brown boxes,” I countered.

“I am not your mother!” she said it emphatically.

“I wasn’t going there,” I stated, trying to bring us back into harmony.

Even with this warning, I went online to Blue Nile to refine what I was looking for. (Note: refine, not purchase.) Now I only had to visit every ring store in southern California to find it, all under the premise of anything but ring shopping.

Every kiss may begin with Kay, but undying, till-death-do-us-part, head-over-heels, destined-from-the-beginning-of-time love is spelled, T-I-F-F-A-N-Y. It also spells artificially inflated prices and implies a general incompatibility with my checking account. I was banking on there being some truth in the saying. “It’s not the size of the rock; it’s the color of the box that matters.”

Of course I visited the Tiffany website first. We’re trainable, but over time. There was a form to fill out for an in-store engagement ring consultation. That seemed like a very good starting place.

- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival