ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

So. After more than nine years of dating, we decided a couple weeks ago that we should get married this year. We’ve always had sort of an agreement that this would probably occur at some point, but we’ve always had ample reasons to put off this event, which at this stage in our relationship, is frankly a formality. It’s not like we haven’t been successfully cohabiting for the past couple years, anyway. But we had a dinner disaster one night that we couldn’t bear to force ourselves to choke down, and on the way home from the restaurant he remarked, “Hey.” I stopped fiddling with the radio and looked at him. “You wanna get married this year or something?”

I shrugged. “That’s not a terrible idea,” I said.

There are a number of reasons this is worth doing. For one thing, it’d be great to get him in on my health insurance. For another, if I were to be hit by a bus or something, I’d prefer he make my medical decisions rather than anyone else. But I suspect that the biggest reason we are doing this now is more related to the fact that my boyfriend’s coworker is getting married and spending a ton of money and my boyfriend wants to show them how it’s done.  More on this “how it’s done” part another time.

So, to this end we went suit shopping yesterday for him because Dillards has a huge sale going on for men’s suits. And while we were in the mall, we decided to stop into Zales and have our ring sizes taken. We had no intention of buying anything there, but since we’ve been shopping for less expensive rings online, I figured it would be helpful to know our sizes for sure. “Engagement rings?” the sales clerk purred as soon as she figured out why we were there. “What type of ring are you interested in?” she asked. Truthfully, I don’t really care that much if I have an engagement ring or not. It would be nice, but if I had an expensive ring I’d halfway be afraid to wear it around, lest I lose it somewhere. But I didn’t mind the idea of trying on a couple to see what I liked. So I went ahead and explained to her that I was interested in a small, inconspicuous setting that wouldn’t snag on anything and that wouldn’t be very noticeable.

“So something that’s not like a princess setting,” I said.

“Great, so you like the princess setting!” she said after my little speech, whipping a $5,999 ring out of the case and putting it on my hand. I slipped it off and told her politely that it wasn’t really what I was looking for. But she wanted to show me more rings. After a couple more which I tactfully rejected, she asked what our budget was for the ring.

I had no idea and I just wanted to leave. “Uh, a thousand dollars,” I said.

“Oh,” she said flatly. She walked us over to another section. “In that case, let me show you the rings we have for shitty people with no money,” she said. Not really. What she really said was, “Let me some you some…other…rings we have.” The rest of it she said with her body language.

After I broke our pitiful budget (which is still more than I would ever agree to spend on a ring at this point) to her, we had no trouble escaping the store. On the way out, I saw a couple of non-diamond rings that were much prettier (and cheaper) than the diamond engagement sets she had been trying to show us. But I’m betting she would have thrown us out of the store for being classless peasants if we had asked about those rings.

That’s okay. I’d probably be bitter if I were working the Zales counter at the mall, too.