The Ring

I don’t like wearing rings; they’re uncomfortable, and I sometimes get nervous about cutting off circulation in my ring finger. Plus, I’m worried I’ll injure my ring finger if the ring catches on a hoop while I’m dunking a basketball (kidding). Still, most married people wear rings, so I follow the rules and wear my ring.

During a previous marriage, I used to take off my ring (a simple gold band) every night before I went to sleep. I’d leave it on the bedside table. It was always there the next morning when I awoke.

I’d been married for several months when a cover band offered me a weekend music job. The job was over 130 miles from my home, so I’d have to spend two nights. I accepted the offer.

I’ve never cheated while married, never tried. Maybe that could be a topic for another story. But my wife was a jealous spouse and worried about me having too much fun away from home. We needed the money, so on the Friday of the job, I loaded my car with music gear and drove the 130 miles to the gig.

The music job went fine. I’d worked with these guys before, we sounded okay, and the audience liked the band. We crammed the group into a couple of hotel rooms, and both nights before falling asleep, I took off my wedding ring and put it on the bedside table.

Sunday morning, I woke and was ready to pack my car and drive home, except there was a problem. My wedding ring was missing. The other musicians in the room were adamant they didn’t take the ring. I sort of freaked and ripped the covers from the bed, then moved the bedside table. There was no ring. While looking in the bed frame, I pulled the bed away from the wall. My ring was in the corner of the room, hidden by the bed frame leg. If I hadn’t moved the bed, I would never have found it. How did it get there? Maybe I hit it in my sleep, and it landed there. Perhaps I put it there in my sleep (I used to sleepwalk). It could have been a prank by my “friends.” At least I had the ring.

I knew my jealous wife would be beyond upset if I came home without a ring. If I hadn’t found the ring, I would have bought a gold band on the way home and just not told her about it.

I returned home and stopped taking off my ring at bedtime.

—

About a year later, I played in a league softball game. After the game, I noticed my wedding ring was missing from my left hand. I decided it came off during the game and returned to the field to search. I looked for a long time and found no ring. I looked in my softball glove. No ring. The ring wasn’t in my car. I searched the yard at my home and didn’t find my ring, though I found a dirty, scratched old gold band in the yard. I don’t know the story of that ring, but I felt sorry for whoever lost it.

I mistakenly told my jealous wife that I’d lost my wedding band at the softball game. She was not pleased, to put it mildly. I endured her unhappiness for a while, then went and bought another gold band.

As far as I can remember, I never mentioned the ring to her again. We divorced less than a year later.

My current (and best) wife is not the jealous type as far as I can tell. If I somehow lost my current wedding ring, I could confess to her without fear of retribution. However, if this happened, I’m confident we would drop everything until I had another ring on my finger.

I’m still not fond of wearing rings, but I’m used to it now. I wear my wedding ring 99.999% of the time and remove it now and then to see if it’s stuck (it never is), then I put it back on my finger.

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.