There were many ways to make Dr. David Banner angry enough to transform into the Hulk. For Dan Seitz, all it took was one trip to the jeweler.
By Dan Seitz
I’m getting ready to propose to my girlfriend. She knows it’s coming. I just need to secure the ring and figure out a good way to surprise her. Possibly achieving the former will require robbing a jewelry store and leaving the money for the ring on the counter, solely to avoid a lecture about what specifically my future wife wants for an engagement ring and then to try to sell me something totally different.
I’m rapidly learning that everything related to weddings is a nightmarish hell of rip-offs and guilt trips. Apparently once you decide to get married, caterers, jewelers, clothing stores, etc. decide you have a bottomless wallet and they have a right to make you feel bad for making responsible fiscal decisions. A friend of mine is getting married, and had everything set with the cupcakes she wanted until the baker found out it was a wedding, then turned around and jacked up the estimate by 20%. Because those were the “wedding” prices. The difference? The pan liners used for the cupcakes.
I can’t say I’m looking forward to the wedding planning because the average wedding somehow costs $27,000 now, and it’s not like I can trick the producers of “My Fair Wedding” to swoop in and pay for it. Maybe instead of gifts we’ll make it a potluck.
♦◊♦
But buying the engagement ring must be a special kind of hell, because I’ve spent two weeks sneaking off to jewelry stores, one after the other, and it’s always the same series of events:
– I walk in the door and start looking at rings while waiting for an associate. This is apparently my first mistake.
– The associate comes over after fifteen to twenty minutes, even if the store is absolutely dead.
– Fortunately, I know exactly what I want, because she’s told me exactly what I want. I tell the jeweler what my girlfriend wants, making it clear this is exactly what she told me, and my budgetary range, which isn’t millions but is pretty good, from what I understand of this. None of this, by the way, is custom work or in any way difficult for a jeweler to do. I know because I called a few on the phone and checked.
– He immediately informs me that’s not what she wants. At this point, the desire to kick the jeweler in the jewels builds.
– The salesperson immediately shows me a ring that costs twice what I told him or her I was willing to pay and is the complete and total opposite of what I was specifically told she wanted, by her, in conversations about this exact topic. I politely demur and tell the jeweler again precisely what I want, silently adding “…or I will punt you in the crotch so hard your children will cry from the pain.”
– At this point the associate morphs from a professional salesperson to the compleat smug, annoying p***k. Yes, even the women. I get a lengthy explanation of the female psyche, and how she thinks she wants this, but once she sees this, she’ll fall in love with it. This puts me in a seething murderous rage.
– I tell the salesperson I’ll have to think about it, not mentioning that “it” is whether I’m going to torch every car or just slash all the tires in the parking lot. This is greeted with a smug chuckle. I leave, torch said store on Yelp, and go to another one, where the cycle repeats.
And that is how your boyfriend either wound up with a ring he couldn’t afford, or quietly went to a pawn shop and bought the first engagement ring he found.
I can’t wait for the wedding. Maybe I should set aside some money for large, burly men with sledgehammers to completely destroy the trucks of extorting vendors. That’d be a valid wedding expense, right?
Originally appeared at GuySpeak.com.
—Photo Lucas_James/Flickr
The wedding industry is a scam piled on top of a bad decision (for men, anyway). It’s all about funneling money away from the man in order to perpetuate a silly stereotyped fantasy for the woman–one which, if you’ve found a good partner, she doesn’t even share in to begin with!
Skip the wedding. if you want a union, see a justice of the peace and go out with friends for a good meal afterward.
The wedding industry is a scam piled on top of a bad decision (for men, anyway). It’s all about funneling money away from the man in order to perpetuate a silly stereotyped fantasy for the woman–one which, if you’ve found a good, she doesn’t even share in to begin with!
Skip the wedding. if you want a union, see a justice of the peace and go out with friends for a good meal afterward.
“There is also a moral problem. Every man has a moral obligation to refuse to participate in the corrupt feminist marriage contract, just as every person would have a moral obligation to refuse to ride on the roof of a car — even if the driver is a trusted friend.” Here is a make believe story to show what I mean: Imagine a pair of Maryland farmers who are good friends — one white and one black. Suppose that the friends are instantly transported back in time, to 1810. Local law enforcement finds them and tells them that they can… Read more »
Interesting. Does your wife understand and agree? Could you both agree to create other contracts and divorce? Surely if your marriage is good, she’d know of this opinion?
My journey into the MRM began when my oldest son was threatened with mandatory use of amphetamine because he drew a picture of a tank during recess. Drawing a picture of anything that is competitive, as opposed to cooperative, is against the feminist school rules of my district. It was his third offence (the first was a picture of a Jedi Knight, the second was playing with his Turkish friend, they pointed their index fingers at each other and made shooting noises). After the first incident, I wanted to tell my son to comply with feminist governance, suppress his desires,… Read more »
Thanks for answering me, I appreciate it.
It sounds like a terribly draconian school district. My experience with public schools in Austin, TX is quite different. My sons draw tanks, tie fighters, and have boys “clubs” filled with super hero ideals. Austin is a very liberal city, FYI, filled with feminists ;), but I’ve not seen this particular repression you speak of.
Kids need play of all kinds, creative, physical etc.
Also, we don’t have mandatory use of ADHD drugs here, so far as I know. Schools can’t diagnose students, only doctors can. Do you, or would you mind linking me to your districts policies? I find that information you shared really terrible! You can email me off line if you prefer, or not, I was just curious.
I have been trying to get my hands on written policy myself. My son’s teacher is very supportive, but says that it is out of her hands.
Open records should allow you to go to the district. I’d be highly suspicious of any school that demanded you medicate without any hearing, reasoning or information from a doctor. I’m sorry you’ve had such difficulty with the school. Know that not all districts in the US are like that.
@Dan Seitz
If your marriage does not work, it is your obligation to yourself to return that ring and cancel the engagement.
If your marriage does work, it is your obligation to your fellow men to return that ring and cancel the engagement.
Either way, you have a responsibility to do the right thing, and refuse marriage. While there is still time.
Nowadays seeing the high rate of marriage failures, it is wiser to lease the ring instead of buying it.
Rapses – That is a money-maker for sure. Lease-a-wedding-ring! hahahaha. How many times were you married? I am 3 for 3.
Never leased or bought a wedding ring.
Don’t spend too much money on a ring or wedding. Also, if people in the stores are acting wack, tell them flat out to cut it the F out. They’d rather lose X because they were pushing for Y? Foolish of them.
I’m not sure why AZ up there is married, if he disdains the institution so much, but my advice would be to make sure you set really clear expectations about what partnership would look like for you. Romance is great and all? But you must be pragmatic about what domestic arrangements really mean.
Julie, I married before I learned the reality of feminist family courts and anti-father discrimination in child custody. The love between us continues strong. I am a lucky man, and for this, I am grateful. However, if my luck runs out, I will be dismembered and cannibalized in family court, like all fathers are. I will lose my property, my income, my dignity, and (by far most important), I will lose my children. Marriage is a journey without guarantees, where bad things can happen to good people. When accidents happen, women are protected by seat belts, air bags, and steel… Read more »
Do not get married. As a single man, you have already lost many of your civil liberties and human rights. If you get married, you sign away what little is left. If you marry, there are two possibilities, equally likely: 50% chance that she will walk. You will be dismembered and cannibalized in family court. Your property, your income, your dignity, your liberty, and your CHILDREN will be taken from you. 50% chance that you will serve out your life sentence as a dehumanized appliance — a combination of an ATM machine and a landscaper in the garden of her… Read more »
Oh, how I loved this article! I have instructed my children that when they marry, please, either elope or get some minister or rabbi to marry you in your backyard and spend all that wedding money on buying a house. Having been married three times I am an expert on this. Following my second divorce I went to a pawn shop to sell my gold wedding band. The clerk, unceremoniously, picked it up like a lab specimen, weighed it and offered me six-dollars and change. That was the day my divorce was final, and the document from the court, stuffed… Read more »