Friday, September 4, 2009

Junior Rings and Brain Surgery


Last night, I sat down with my 16-year old son to order his junior class ring. He hands me the paperwork so I can review it, and I immediately cringe.

I'm always suspicious when something says, "Only Four Easy Steps!!!"

Ha.

Ordering a junior class ring is about as easy as brain surgery. (Of course, I've never performed brain surgery - but I would assume it's rather difficult...correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I'm ever wrong....)

Those "four easy steps" EACH had at least 16.6 "sub-steps" - I kid you not- and so what I thought would take just a few minutes ended up taking 93 minutes and 47 seconds. Really. I missed the ending of Project Runway, which did NOT make me happy.

Back in the dinosaur age, when I was ordering my own junior class ring, I got to pick the stone color. Woo hoo. That was about the only choice you got back then. And I was really creative - I picked my birthstone. Done deal.

NOW - you begin by picking the style of ring - "achiever", "heritage", etc - all fancy names for what REALLY means, "Really expensive price for small piece of stone and metal." Speaking of the metal, you must choose that, too. We have white gold, yellow gold, purple gold, silver gold, platinum gold, topaz platinum (okay, I made some of those up - but you get the idea) - and so on, and so on....

After choosing the stone, you then must decide what goes on the sides (sports? clubs? logos? pets? future jobs? And, are you kidding me on future jobs? Who the heck knows in high school what their future job is going to be???)...after designing both sides, we then had to decide what goes on top, on the inside, on the bottom side - who knew a ring had so many freakin' sides?!!

And wait! You're not finished yet! Get this - you pick a finish....seriously? Who cares what kind of freakin' finish you have on your ring?? What the heck IS a finish, anyway???!

After spending most of the evening flipping through the 152-page design book - and then attempting to fill in the oh-so-easy order form - it is going to be REALLY interesting to see what my son ends up with when it's finally delivered. We think we've ordered a silver ring with a crimson (go, OU) stone and a baseball logo on one side and a Christian cross on the other side...with an antique finish, of course. What we probably ordered instead? A purple ring with a green stone, a cheerleader on one side and the Glee Club on the other side.

Sorry, son. We tried.

When our 10-year old daughter is ready to order her ring, we'll hire a brain surgeon to help us with the paperwork.

Peace.

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