A Real Nail Biter

Soooooo, I write that huge long post about searching for the perfect ring, and at the end I noted how Andrew found a jewelry store he wanted me to stop by and take a peek at. So we did. Annnnnnd…..we found the PERFECT ring!! We found the take-my-breath-away-unicorns-fairy dust-midgets-on-a-curb fantasy ring!! It is so beautiful, very uniquely shaped and it makes my engagement ring look like heaven. Just heaven!!! I tried it on, and I had the “moment”. Then I literally could not step away from it. I kept asking the jeweler to let me try it on again and again. I slipped it on, then held my hand out and grinned and grinned. Then I had the jeweler try it on for me and she looked GORGEOUS in it. Then the manager, who was a male, had it on his finger while he was doing something else and even he took my breath away in it. That’s when I knew. It was the one.

He told us we could drive around the block and think, but Andrew was all “Bitch please. Have you met my fiancé?!” He knew once I locked in on it I was locked in. And GET. THIS. They were having a one-day SuperBowl sale. In honor of SuperBowl 48, the ring was freaking 48% off!!! Which can only be a divine intervention because this ring was NOT in our budget.  Not even in the ballpark, or likely the same state as our budget. It laughed at our budget. And at first, I didn’t know it was on sale, and I saw the price and very meekly handed it back and said no because I didn’t want to get attached. Then he said it’s on sale, and I practically jumped like a cheetah and took that bitch back and put it on my finger like there was no tomorrow!

So Andrew agrees to buy it, and they begin filling out all the paperwork, and I just sat there. Wearing the ring. Smiling. Like that creepy smile where some people may think you have gas, or know all the secrets. My precious.  I was just in another world! But alas, it needed resized by a half-size so I had to give the precious back. But it will be ready soon and I can rule the world!!! Or get married. Whatevs.

My next story also involves a ring, but not the wedding ring – my engagement ring! So I went to the nail salon yesterday to get my nails done in a nice Valentines color (hot pink, duh.) I sit down with my nice little man and he begins working on my nails. I had my engagement ring on, which was not really a problem at all because he was working primarily on my nails – buffing, filing, cutting, etc. Well, then he gets into the actual manicure portion which involved oils and lotions and heating pads and all that jazz. And then, before I can pull myself out of my ethereal state of relaxation, this little man takes my ring off and TOSSES it!!! He not only TOSSES it (did I mention he TOSSED it?!), but he TOSSES it onto this little porcelain tray sitting on the other side of the table. It made a *clink* sound as it hit, and LANDED ON A FINGERNAIL!! Oh hell to the mother of midgets to the NAW he did NOT! He didn’t. He couldn’t. This tiny, unassuming Vietnamese man did NOT just play ring toss with my fifty-eleven thousand dollar engagement ring! And it did NOT land on the landfill of a finger nail that came off of who knows what! It could have been a toe nail for all I know – I mean, they cut those things and they fly and….oh God, ALL the things.

So this happens, and I am literally shell-shocked and I turn to look at him in horror. I couldn’t even process a word. But he has both my hands already immersed in oil and shoved in plastic baggies, stuffed into mini-heating pads. So I’m sitting here, completely unable to DO anything about it. He goes, “Three minute, you stay.” And then he just gets up and walks away. Just leaves me sitting there, staring at my beautiful diamond across the table, lying on its side with a fingernail for a pillow whilst it sleeps. So I just lay there next to it. I hung my head, and just stared at it. Finally, after what felt like 25 hours, he comes back and takes my hands out and I think “Free at last!!! Lord Almighty, I am free at last!” and he tells me to go wash my hands. I look him straight in the eye, without wavering, and keep eye contact as I creep my hand over and grab my ring, then put it back on my finger. I shoved it on, maintained eye contact, and stand up to go wash my hands. When I get back to the table, it is time to actually paint my nails and then bake them ( I do gel nails) so he takes my hand and begins painting. I have by this point turned my ring around backwards, lest he jump me, and he proceeds to paint.

As I’m baking, he asks if I like the new colors, and I say yes, very much. He goes, “Good. Old color you look like old lady. New color you young again.”

Bitch, please he did NOT just insult me??????!!!! He told me I “look like old lady”. Well, you look like old man who throw ring! MMm!

Shew y’all, I am getting riled up just thinking about it again. He through my ring on an old FINGER NAIL, and then he called me old! In what universe is that okay? Not Micha’s!

Although my nails do look amazing.

You shall escape unharmed today little man. But I’ve got your number. Well, not your number, but your name. Okay, I don’t actually remember you r name. But you had long creepy nails. So yeah – I’ve got your long creepy nails little man. Ima remember you.

In other news, last night I had my first “wedding dream” – I’ve been waiting to experience this phenomena. That dream where you go through your wedding from start to finish, and it all goes unbearably wrong in every way, and you are 100% convinced that it is actually real and happening.  I’m one of those freaks who remember everything about all my dreams, so lucky you – read on.

The dream began with me getting ready behind the scenes. The first thing to note was that I hated my dress. Even in the dream, I distinctly thought it was just awful. The second thing to note is that we were in a gigantic Catholic cathedral. Now, I am not Catholic and I’m pretty sure they have rules about outside riff-raff, so I’m not sure how I even made the cut get married there. Anyway, my dress was long and flowy and very wedding-y but it was awful. The next thing I knew, I switched scenes and I was sitting in the pews of the Sanctuary next to an old friend from high school. I kept telling her I didn’t think it was good for me to be sitting there, but she promised me no one would notice. And for whatever reason – they didn’t! I sat there, dressed like a bridal cupcake in the middle of Saints Peter, Paul, and Mary Mary and not one damn person noticed. Next thing I knew, it was time to walk in. I was suddenly behind these big doors waiting on them to open, and when they did I realized that the aisle we had to walk in on was seriously like 4 miles long. I started walking, and was out of breath. My dad was standing halfway down the aisle and greeted me and took me to the altar. Andrew was standing there, and he goes, “What’s up with the dress?” and I’m all, “I don’t know, just go with it.”

Then, my mom appears. And you know how your maid of honor or someone is usually there to fluff your dress, take your flowers, and in general make sure you look like a rock star in that moment? Yeah, that didn’t happen. Instead, my mom creeps out from literally nowhere, and she lifts my dress and begins taking my shoes off to put socks on my feet. Big, thick, sturdy, furry socks. And I get really annoyed and embarrassed and keep telling her to leave my damn feet alone, but she INSISTS that I need furry socks or everything will fall apart. I look out into the crowd and no one seems particularly bothered by the socks, but they are a little miffed at how long it is taking.

So, the socks get on and I turn around, and suddenly Andrew’s brother (Malcolm) appears from the groom’s side. He is grinning ear to ear, wearing a kilt, and holding a trumpet. My first thought in the dream was, “Wait. He doesn’t play trumpet.” So he does this weird military/Scottish kilt-kick maneuver and ends up front and center. Still grinning, he puts the trumpet to his mouth and proceeds to play a rather loud bugle call that has NO rhyme or reason to it. It sounded awful, and was all the wrong notes. He finishes, then smiles again and then salutes me before he steps back into the shadows. My mom, still creeping around my socks, tugs on my dress and I look down and then I woke up. The end.

W.

T.

F.

Three Ring Circus

Three Ring Circus

So the wedding ring shopping has officially begun. I had this fairytale idea in my head that this process was going to be SO simple. The engagement ring that I have actually has a matching wedding band. When Andrew was shopping for my ring, he was going to just purchase the set and be done. My sister, Leslie, was helping him out though and she told him she felt that I may want something unique just knowing how I am. So shout out to Leslie for that! Because as it turns out, I do in fact want something unique. I saw the band that comes with my ring, and I decided it wasn’t quite bold enough for me. I want something wider, larger, more intricately designed. NOT that the band that comes with mine isn't perfectly lovely. I keep trying to get a link to the picture of my band on here, but the internet is special. Or I am. Tomato, tomahto.

Anyway, beautiful though it may be, we set out to go ring shopping.

Okay. Place number one we stopped was Jared’s. You know – “he went to Jared’s! Ooooo!” Andrew warned me before going in that they all work on commission so that a sales person would attack us immediately and try to talk us into buying a ring. He had shopped there for my engagement ring, so he was prepared. Well. I fooled them! I went in, and immediately we were swept up by a little blonde sales girl. She took us straight to wedding band land and opened the case and pulled diamonds out for me to try on. SO naturally I didn’t argue. At first she tried telling me what type of band I should have for my ring. And I was like Ohhhhh, no no no no no sweet child. I am Micha. I am quirky. Step aside jewelry lady. I began asking her to pull out very unique rings. After a while, she tired of me and was all “Oh hell naw, I ain’t got time to go find this bitch a ring from middle earth. Pam! Get over here!” And then sales lady number two appears. She was like, “Oh, I GOT this. Ima sell this one. I sell ice to Eskimos. Boom.” So I have her begin pulling out different styles, and of course everything I loved she loved, and everything I hated she hated. Great self-esteem booster, these jewelry ladies.

I began requesting to see crazy things like sapphires, purple diamonds, and amethysts. Rings with swirly things and weaving. Well, that did Pam in. She was all, “Okay, I miss the Eskimos. Belinda!” And then entered Belinda. Belinda looked like she was the store manager, or perhaps the manager of ALL the things. She was….sturdy. And curt. And to the point. So she walks over, opens the case by practically shoving Pam out of the way and goes, “Okay. I have it. THIS is outside the box.” And she pulls out this beautiful rose gold ring. And I loved it, I really did. But it was also like $109501983431 and I didn’t feel that quite fit my budget. I had already set aside the sapphires and amethyst and was back in diamond land, and she goes, “Okay. NOW I have it. I have something in the back!” and she disappears, only to reappear five minutes later with a ring Pam had shown me like 17 days earlier, so I’m all “Bitch, please that ring is So 10 minutes ago,” and so Belinda is all “Next!” and disappears. So sales girl number ….4? Yes, four. She appears, and I don’t even get a name from her. She is all, “Okay bitch, you clearly aren’t purchasing a ring today and we are over it so fill out this information slip and bite me.” So she writes down the item numbers for the four rings that I actually did like, but then she won’t let us see it! She’s all, “Oh hell naw, these forms stay HERE and here only and they are protected by elves who work as CIA agents by day, and ring ninjas by night, so if I show you this form with the rings YOU picked out, a fairy will die. So boom.” So Andrew got a little snippy and was all, “How much are they?!” and she was all, “Eat me.” And we were all “Bye.” And I didn’t buy a ring.

So we then went to Rivard’s, which is where Andrew bought my engagement ring. Here, we had to ring a doorbell to even be allowed to enter the store. It is privately owned, and Mr. Rivard himself was there and let us in. He is the one who sold Andrew my ring. He was the complete opposite of the 4 sales bitches at Jared’s. He was SOOOOo friendly and sweet and nice. He very kindly explained the ins and outs of ring buying to us, the timelines, and he very sweetly showed me any ring I wanted to try on. And as a bonus, he took my engagement ring to the back to have it cleaned while we were looking. Loved him. I did find a few rings that I liked there, that were also a bit more expensive, but we are fans of him and his son, so that’s a bonus. Customer service goes a LONG way y’all! He also was kind enough to talk to us about a ring that we found at Kay Jewelers. It was beauuuutiful and full of actual purple diamonds. I had fallen in love with it at first sight and just KNEW it was going to be my ring. But then my world crashed because I discovered it was set in sterling silver, not white gold. So he kindly explained to us the world of sterling verses white gold, and how sterling just will never work for a wedding band. But then he lifted my spirits a bit because apparently if we do buy the ring at Kay’s he can simply re-set it in white gold for me – recast it in my size and reset the diamonds. But then the cost starts to get a little pretty again, so that’s if-y.

We also checked out the Castle, just out of pure curiosity. It was like entering a Vegas nightclub going in there. First of all, they had the door “propped” open by using a rubberband tied from the door to a nail on the wall. Quite the far cry from having to ring the doorbell at Rivard’s. And then second of all, the world’s bitchiest pocket gay worked here. He saw my ring and gasped and ooo’d and aww’d and told me how beautiful it was, and how he had something in the back that was perfect for it. So he flits away, and then finally comes back with…the ring that is supposed to go with my ring. Remember? The one that I ruled out like seven paragraphs ago? So I politely tell him that it is a bit thin for my taste and that I want something a bit wider and bit more unique. So he not-so-politely tells me that I CANNOT have a wider band because it will NOT look right with my ring. He stood and stared at me with the thin band in his hand like, “MmmHmmm. That’s right. I said it. Now put the thin band back on. Now.” And I stared right back like, “Take that thin band and your 1987 flock of seagull’s haircut to the back room and find something wider. Now.” And he did. But he found nothing else. I meanwhile looked in the case of wedding bands and didn’t see one single ring that remotely looked decent. They all looked cheap and gawdy – I mean, we were in the Castle after all so I wasn’t expecting my life to be changed. So I tell him that I really don’t see what I’m looking for because I want something different. Then he pretty much was pissed by that point and just stood there telling me how I MUST have a thin band, how nothing else will look right, and then he just outright was done. He clearly wanted to move on. I did manage to ask him a few more questions, and Andrew picked his brain about sterling verses white gold (he agreed with Mr. Rivard on this one), and that was it.

So we left Vegas….errr, um The Castle…and went and got some green tea at Sonic, which made me feel considerably better about life in general. Then we discussed how Andrew’s cousin works for a jeweler in Somerset and she can probably design and get me whatever I want, for half the price, and all was well.

Then last night, I do the crazy – I WebMD wedding rings. Whyyyy oh why?!?! I start googling unique rings, and then I fall into the Pinterest abyss of unique rings, and I fall down the rabbit hole. Actually I jumped. Willingly. I discover though, that I am NOT crazy. Lots of women like to have a more unique wedding band. PLENTY of women out there have a more ornate design on their ring, rather than a plain silver/diamond band. Thinking outside the box is cool people! Get on my Micha bandwagon. Oh the places you will go!

So. Conclusion.

1.       Buying a wedding ring is not quick and easy.

2.       Never assume the “set” that goes with your ring is your only option.

3.       Boys have it way easier. I think I could tie a bread tie around Andrew’s finger and he would consider it at least partially classy. And be satisfied.

4.       Thinking outside the box and wanting this special element is okay.  Quirkiness is part of who I am, and I embrace that. It doesn’t matter what snobby sales girls and bitch pocket gays say to you. You are a strong, beautiful woman. You is kind. You is smart. You is important.

5.       Take the time to find what YOU want. Not what is recommended, what is expected, but truly deep down what YOU want to wear for the rest of your life. This is a very special ring, and I have very special plans to make it very special. Sometimes I like to say special.

On that note my lovelies, Andrew just texted me and said he just stopped by a jewelry store that he really thinks I will like some of the bands at and he wants to take me there after work. Ladies, I love that man.