“Wow, the ring comes with its own drama,” my gym trainee said last week.
“Figures,” I said, “The relationship is so peaceful that the RING has to have drama.”

Mr. W happened upon The Ring in a jewelry shop while we were on our cruise some weekends ago. Once he saw it, and saw the heart through the jeweler’s loupe, there was no turning back for him and no talking him out of the extravagant purchase. And to think that I was just trying to get to the other side of the store to look at on-sale tanzanite stuff! No, Mr. W had found The Ring. To explain the ensuing drama, I’m going to change the numbers to make them more simple and understandable.

The salesperson said that the ring would appraise for $16 bucks, but because we were purchasing out at sea, we were saving sales tax AND there was a discount on the ring, bringing it down to $9 bucks and some change. The ring has a full money-back warranty for the first year and she said that if it doesn’t appraise for over $16 bucks, or if we change our mind on the purchase, we can return it back to the designer/manufacturer. After some discussion, she said if we take it right then and there, her manager had agreed to discount it down to $8 and some change. Well, if we’re getting a $16 ring for $8, that’s half off, so that’s pretty decent, Mr. W thought, and plunged forth into the full commitment, pun intended. As purchased, the ring was 2.5 sizes too big, and the saleslady gave us the information to contact the designer/lab and informed us the resizing would be free, and we’d be reimbursed postage and mail insurance.

A few days later, we were informed that no mail courier service (UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS)’s shipping insurance truly covers jewelry; that they’d insure your package, but the contract has every loophole in it for jewelry that virtually makes insuring jewelry through them pointless. So we were suggested to take out our own insurance policy on it before shipping the ring off for resize (the lab is in Miami, Florida).

At this point you’re probably wondering why I don’t just get it resized locally. It’s because local jewelers resize by cutting a length of gold off the bottom of the band, and bonding the remaining ring together, forming a smaller circle. With 64 stones sitting on 3 surfaces of this band, no local jeweler could offer a guarantee that the side stones won’t pop off once the circle is reduced by that many sizes. Plus, cutting the band would remove the designer seal and signature on the inside of the band. The original designer would make a new band in my size, remove the current stones, and re-set them into the new band.

Okay, so I called my homeowner’s insurance company. They said they’d insure the ring under my homeowner’s policy for an extra $320 a year, but that policy would only cover $10 of the ring. What about the other $6? They said I can take out a policy just for the ring itself, and that’d cost $500/year. Holy crap. But first, before they write any policy, they want the ring appraised and a formal appraiser’s report submitted to them.

So off I went to find a gem appraiser. I found a really good one who has 25 years of experience, has certifications and gemology degrees up the yin yang, and met with her over the weekend. The appraiser examined, weighed, took photos of the ring, and researched by calling the actual ring designer’s company for replacement value. The 9-page appraisal report came in late last nite. The value? Not over $16 buckaroos like the store claimed. But $10 smackers. Yup. Less than 2/3 of the claimed retail value.

So now I’m ticked. I feel swindled, not by Mr. W, but by the store. And I want to return the ring and get Mr. W his money back. If anyone knows me, they know I don’t pay full price for anything, because I do my research first and walk in with a great bargaining chip or work through reliable connections. Granted, I was not expecting to go ring-shopping or get a proposal, so I’d done no homework, and this isn’t even my money, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t mind paying $9 clams for a $16 item, nor paying $5 clams for a $10 item, but I don’t like paying $9 for a $10 item. What the hell is that?! Jewelry is marked up so much already that we shouldn’t be paying more than about half of the full retail value.

Last nite, after some brainstorming with an engaged friend, I was thinking that I’d go ring shopping, and see if anything out there really grabs hold of me. Chances are that it’d be a bigger stone or better value for $9 (cuz we’re not paying designer prices for a patented cut), OR it’d be a similar item for $5 or less. And if it happens that nothing out there compares to this one and I fall in love with the one I have, then I’ll insure it, ship it off to get resized. Mr. W is okay with this plan, and it may save/refund him a lot of money.

And then all day today, people kept talking about the ring. “Where’s this amazing ring that everybody’s been talking about, lemme see!” said a male security guard downstairs that I normally have zero rapport with. People everywhere, judges, reporters, attorneys, bailiffs, people I don’t even know, have heard about it and say it’s the talk of the courthouse. Mr. W is now touted as THE man with THE best taste in jewelry. And he really did fall in love with the ring, and came up with this whole metaphor comparing me and our relationship to it in his proposal.

So the dilemma is, is my Asian thrift gene more dominant, or will my sentimentalist gene win over? Argh.
(For more examples of the Asian thrift gene, see here and here.)
What do you guys think about this situation?