The Engagement Ring, In Which I Learn about Recycling

Being the first of many stories I wish to share about my sister Tammy, I think some background would be helpful. This story occurred while Tammy was in her mid-twenties and was getting married for the second time (the first wedding/marriage/divorce is a whole series of  stories for other posts). I was just an irresponsible university student learning about handing in papers on time and trying to drink as much beer as I could scam out of eager young university boys. It never occurred to me that by my sister's standards I was a rank amateur in the art of getting what you want from others, no matter how outrageous!


I was very excited to learn my sister was engaged again when I came home from my fall semester at school.  I enjoyed my sister's first wedding thoroughly. Good food and free drink!  I eagerly anticipated attending the second wedding. I figured the new husband couldn't be any worse than the first, so what the hell? I returned to University after Christmas and I figured I'd get the details as required.

"Daddy, he just can't do this to me!"

Much to my utter dismay I came back for a weekend shortly thereafter to find my house and family in a total uproar. And I do mean an uproar. Actually, it was something out of a Tennessee Williams play. Everyone was emotional and my mom had tears in her eyes. Tammy was crying and speaking very sincerely to my parents.  Hand on her forehead, "Daddy, he just can't do this to me!" This honestly happened and we're not even Southern.  I was thinking the poor bastard had come to his senses and dumped her.  What happened?  What I eventually learned may explain why my mother was crying too!

Not Quite As Big As My Sister's Rock

You see, my sister's first husband was actually quite well to do.  He had a collection of large uncut diamonds that he had purchased over the years as an investment, knowing that one day he would be able to have a lovely and unique ring designed for his bride to be. My sister had been the lucky recipient of this Rock of Gibraltar.  Now,  I know very little about diamonds but I do know when your talking about these symbols of undying love and eternity $20,000 -$30,000 means you really love somebody a lot.  Now a gay divorcee, she  wore the Rock of Gibraltar as a cocktail ring.  So, getting back to the poor schlep that had just proposed and was now causing uproar. You see, he could only afford $5,000 for her new engagement ring. What was Jerry (the poor schlep) thinking, only $5,000? My sister was terribly worried that this was a bad sign for the marriage. Apparently, if you really, really love someone and they have been married before, you should know that their second engagement ring should be bigger, better and more expensive than their first. So, if your first engagement ring was worth in excess of $30,000, surely the second one should cost more!?!

Reduce your carbon footprint

None of us were very sympathetic to her plight. Privately my father said, "He should tell the #@*% to bugger off".   I used this as insider knowledge in the pool I was running on how long the marriage would last ( I was a poor university student, I needed the money). God love him, he held on as long as he could, he really believed the money he was prepared to spend was quite respectable.  I don't know how she got him to cave, but cave he did.  I guess he really did love her.  Maybe she witheld sex. This, I learned is a powerful tool with a man who has been raised to save it for marriage. Not being a virgin (after all, she had already been married once before) she convinced Jerry that it was OK for them to have sex. What's that expression about closing the barn door after the cow has run off... I have a feeling that now that he was a sexually active thirty year old he would have gone along with anything to keep that door open. Here comes the important lesson on recycling: the Rock of Gibraltar was kept, the $5,000 was put into two diamonds to sit on either side of the Rock of Gibraltar and a new setting was to be designed that allowed for more diamonds to be added as Jerry could afford it.  She was bitterly disappointed a whole new bigger and better stone was not forthcoming. However, because her fiance was so hard up for cash (only $5,000), she was able to convince my dad that he had to pay for yet another wedding.  After all, your second wedding has to be bigger and better than your first wedding.  Fortunately for our father, she was was marrying into a teetotaling born again Christian family, so the bar bill wouldn't be too bad.


Shockingly, the wedding went ahead. Years later they were at some charity function, a prominent jeweler from the community came up to Tammy and said " That's one of the nicest diamonds I've ever seen."  I'm not sure if she tells people it's from her first husband. That was over twenty years ago. Surprisingly, she and Jerry are still married, the Rock of Gibraltar now has an accompanying archipelago and I lost the wedding pool ($100). Most importantly, I learned about reducing your carbon footprint by recycling your engagement ring.