The Return of the Bling

I made a decision on my ring. Technically, the Shane Company diamond store and the Chicago Hilton conferred and made the decision for me. I could either stay at the Chicago Hilton or have a new stone, and the Hilton offered the much fairer deal. So I opted to re-unite ring and stone in an historically accurate restoration.

When I dropped off the ring, the salesperson amused me by treating my stone with the same respect they would give the Star of India. He looked at it under the jeweler’s loupe. He diagrammed all the flaws. This great care was particularly funny to me, since I knew the original purchase price of the entire wedding set was $900. Of course, a diamond of the same size and quality currently goes for 900 zillion dollars at the Shane Diamond Extortion Emporium.

He got a pair of tweezers and delicately paraded my diamond to the repair counter. He started carefully signing it in, stamping ledgers, marking, initialing, stamping receipts —

“Ooops,” he said, and dropped to the floor on his hands and knees.

I was about to ask if he’d lost his contact lens when I noticed I could see the tweezers on the counter, but not my diamond. Then he got eyeball level with the carpet, wriggled toward a file cabinet, and snagged the diamond.

He hopped up and said, “Sorry about that,” too humble to meet my amused glance.

“Oh sure,” I said, “the old switcheroo. How do I know you don’t just have loose diamonds scattered about the carpet? Hmm. That’s not my diamond. It looks too large.”

Yeah, he didn’t think it was all that funny either.

It took them a week to repair it, and after three days of erotically stroking my slim and “single” nude ring finger, and three days of forlornly petting my lonely empty naked ring finger, I picked it up today.

I don’t think it’s my diamond.

I know, I know. It’s clean, that’s why it looks different. Its in a wider setting. It’s in a higher setting so foreshortening make it seem bigger. I’m crazy. It does make me feel like one of the patients in an Oliver Sacks book, because I don’t recognize my diamond. But I won’t feel right until I get a loupe and look into its flawed heart.