The Gods of Husbands Royally Screwed

I married my beloved in a really cool wedding in an art gallery featuring art by Todd Murphy at the time. His giant paintings of delicate lace dresses and people dressed in white cotton underwear hung from hangers were a lovely backdrop.

Circa 1994 when we were really cool people who got married in an art gallery.

Our wedding was one of celebration because well, isn’t every wedding? But also because it was a long road to get there with lot of twists and turns. Our courtship involved meeting in the parking lot of our apartment complex. He could see in my window which might be a little creepy but since I married him I guess it’s not. When I first met him I didn’t really think of him that way and so I was as surprised as anyone when I fell in love. After some time we were fairly exclusive. By fairly exclusive I mean he wasn’t so keen on exclusivity so I ended it. If you’re keeping up with the story you remember we lived in the same apartment complex, right?Learn from me! Never date anyone in our apartment complex! Never, ever. Unless you have the chance of marrying them because then, it is awesome.

A few months after we went cold turkey from each other he called and asked if we could talk. He confessed his probably –most likely – love and wanted to work things out because I was the shit and since I had it bad for him and was still in love I asked him to take a shower with me. Three months later we were living together and a year after that he proposed marriage.

Newly married and a traveling husband when cell phones were $500 a month I resorted to his printed out itineraries from his travel agent to stay in touch. Many times during his trips I would fax him notes (FAX!) or leave messages at the front desk. If he was traveling for several days I might send him a package at the hotel. I know, it’s so sweet I kind of want to barf with you.

His itinerary changed one trip and I had to call his travel agent to find out where he was and she said she’d seen him last night, even had dinner. WTH? His travel agent? Hate to tell the new husband but exclusivity is one of my sticking points of marriage! Turns out he went to a bar with a group of people on her recommendation; she lived in the city and joined the group with her boyfriend. Being the insecure ass I was, I didn’t really believe that story so I held it against him and made his very existence on the planet for the next few days unbearable, all by phone.

On the plane ride home he wrote something heartfelt and romantic on a card he’d purchased at the airport. He gently removed the wedding band I’d given him to read the inscription I’d had etched inside. He couldn’t predict what would happen next; it simply rolled off the tray.

It was gone.

It was as if the Gods of Husbands Royally Screwed were sending a message to him to get his act together because if he went home after this trip without his ring there is no way the God’s of the Pissed Off Wives was going to let me believe the Travel Agent Just Showed Up at The Bar story.

The God’s of Husbands Royally Screwed rolled that ring right into a little well in the floor where the seats connect to the plane. My beloved could see it but couldn’t reach it. Desperately trying to get it out the flight attendant finally made him take his seat to land. As passenger after passenger filed past my husband in first class to leave the plan, the flight attendant delighted in retelling the story to as many passengers as she could about the lost ring. The passengers, mostly business people returning home, had a big time teasing him about his lost ring and how much trouble he’d be in when he returned home. This is a gross understatement.

At home later that evening as he is showing off his injured, grease-stained hands, my husband recounts his harrowing tale of the lost wedding band and his efforts to retrieve it with pens, utensils and his fingers. He tells of how the plane is empty and how Delta mechanics heroically enter the plane with tools and they remove the seat that is connected to the well that imprisons the wedding band, releasing my husband from the depths of panic he’s never known.

Because he knows, from this trip especially, he cannot return home without that wedding ring.

And that is how Delta Airline mechanics saved my marriage.

Photo credit: Mary Anne Mitchell