Weirdness

Yesterday, Eric gave me the opal ring, and I tried it on. It fit loosely on my pinky, but it wouldn’t quite go over the knuckle on my ring finger, which is where I wanted to wear it. Oh, well, we thought; my wedding set needs “taken in” a bit, anyway, so I figured I’d take them all to the store today.

Cue me at the jewelry counter this afternoon, taking the ring box out of my purse. “My husband gave me this ring yesterday, and it won’t quite fit on my…” I said, just as the ring easily slipped onto my ring finger. I stared at it. She stared at me.

“Well, it actually looks a little big for you now,” she said. “That’s Wisconsin. But your hands seem to really change a lot!” Gee, thanks for making me feel even more freakish, ma’am.

So we toyed around. My wedding rings turned out to be a size and a half different from each other, which I don’t recall being the case, but I have no clue anymore. They both needed to come down about three sizes, and that was with me being firm that I didn’t want them quite as small as she thought they should be; after all, if my fingers are going to blow up and shrink down like balloons, I’d rather not have my circulation cut off at random intervals. I decided that the opal ring is fine; it might spin a little around the base of my finger, but it’s not slipping back up over the knuckle, either.

(Surreal moment of the exchange: when talking about my fingers, she referred to the base of my finger as “even tinier” than the top. “Tiny” was never a word I’ve ever heard used in reference to my fingers, ever. I recall actually remarking to my mother once that the fake hands used to model rings in the windows of jewelry stores had the longest, most slender fingers ever, and how I wished mine were like that. Now, according to websites for a few stores I just checked, I’m about half a size away from the bottom of what they typically stock. Unless, you know, it’s yesterday morning. Sheesh.)