Up Up And, Sadly, Away

I listened with fascinated horror to the news about a guy who thought he had a romantic and original way to propose to his girlfriend. And he did, though he might've wanted to give it a wee bit more thought. In short, he put the $12,000 engagement ring (that's right--$12,000) in a helium balloon with the thought that as she popped the balloon, he'd pop the question. Clever, eh? And you can guess what happened. Oh, and this wasn't some playboy with money to burn---he was a carpet/floor layer and probably had been saving for ages. Or went into some serious debt. (I have a whole other rant about the engagement ring scam, but I'll save that for later). So, I was feeling sorry for the poor dumb fool, but when I read the story in the news and read about his girlfriend's reaction, I really felt sorry for him. You can read about it here but basically she's refusing to talk to him until he gets her a new ring. Excuse me??!! Not: "I'm so sorry you just spent your life's savings and it went up into the ether! I'm so sorry that you wanted to do a romantic thing and you lost it all. Oh, how sweet of you and I'm so sorry." No. Nothing like that. The silent treatment until he coughs up another one. Well, here's what I hope happens: I hope he magically, by some amazing twist of fate, gets the ring back. I hope he returns it and puts the money straight into the bank. And then I hope he dumps her. She doesn't deserve him--or at least he doesn't deserve her. Or maybe he does. I don't know. There clearly could be more to the story that could possibly (doubtful) justify her response. But outside of that, I find it just tacky and self-centered and immature. Maybe he should fish a new ring out of a Cracker Jack box and give it to her. That seems more fitting.