THIS ONE MIGHT MAKE YOU BARF

Or you might find it endearing. Either way, it could be one of the most saccharine-sweet stories you’ll ever read from a coupla muscle bears.

First, some background: Many many years ago, I bought Boyfriend Bill a sterling silver signet ring for his birthday. A couple of months later he bought me one for mine. It hadn’t any particular significance at the time. We just thought it would be nice to exchange symbols of our friendship.

It turns out we were building a relationship that’s lasted a lifetime. Who knew?

Today’s story begins on vacation in Provincetown on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Bill thought it was time for a ring upgrade. Crackerjack shopper that he is, he found just the bands for us at a trendy little shop on Commercial Street.

But alas, they had to be ordered from Switzerland and mailed to our home in Montreal. In the meantime, we decided we’d start to wear our old signet rings on the traditional wedding-ring finger, where the new rings would eventually live (up 'til then they'd been on a middle finger). Never mind the fit wasn’t quite as snug as it should have been: It was just short-term, until the new ones arrived from Europe.


Late that afternoon we cycled out to the shore at Herring Cove, after the masses had left for t-dance. We prefer an abandoned beach. The tide was rising and the water rough, just the way we like it.

As we splashed about - and, come to think of it, this was entirely predictable - the ill-fitting signet ring slipped off my finger and sunk into the turbulent waters of the Bay. Shit.

We figured it had to be laying mere inches from where I was standing, but we could neither see nor feel it, as much as we squinted in the salt water and groped around in the sand and sludge.

It was gone. I was distraught. We were crushed.

Right then, we had a Harold and Maude moment,
recalling when Harold gives his elderly beloved one a token inscribed “Harold loves Maude” at the seaside amusement park. Maude admires it, saying it’s the loveliest gift she’s received in years. Then she tosses it into the ocean with the pledge “So I’ll always know where it is”.

Possession of just one of the old rings between us seemed awkward and unbalanced. We knew what had to happen next.

We stood close together in the frigid waters. Silently, we looked into each other’s eyes, tears welling. Half a minute passed before Bill said quietly, “It’s gone”.

We like to think of our old signet rings resting together, somewhere in the Atlantic. And we’ll always know where they are, romantic goons that we are.