This particular 20 year old was also convinced that she was engaged and they were planning to get married November-ish. Her boyfriend (who she cheated on, of course) was not entirely aware of this. A different friend of mine was the one whose boyfriend had offered to spend that much money on a ring. Granted he's approaching 30 years old and makes over six figures. She initially wanted at least a two carat ring, and was only persuaded otherwise after discovering how enormous such a diamond would be on her tiny hands. They ended up engaged and I think they're broken up now. Hm.
This might be weird, but I've already picked out my engagement ring. It's a little bit flashier than I usually care to be, but I'm a romantic at heart, and when I propose, I really feel like the ring I designed will make her happy, and that's all I care about. You can replace money. Spoiler
Where is that guy who was offered $26K for that, was that Diablo? He can act as your pimp and split it 50/50.
"Other people, look at this thing I did. You respond with words? I suggest that you taste my penis." Only a lawyer could muster this level of discourse.
Color me shocked. I thought that it would be at least a year or two into the marriage before ballsack had to resort to strangers on the internet, and not FutureWife, to get some oral.
"Objection, your Honor. The question calls for speculation." "Denied." "Fucking blow me." I want to see that.
As with all diamond discussions, I will post the definitive work (and it's 30 years old) on why you are a complete and total sucker for making DeBeers richer. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/4575/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... mond/4575/</a>
Here's the rub: the process IS fucking idiotic. It's a ruse, a confidence scheme, invented by a corporation to sell rocks that previously held little to no value. Diamonds are so prevalent that, if it were not for DeBeers and their brilliant market strategy, they would be classified as semi-precious stones. That said, I played the game. The appraisal value of my fiancee's ring is intense. However, I know a guy, and paid a little under 1/6th of the appraisal value. To be fair, my girl is 5'11" and needed a big rock. But I was solidly in the sapphire side of the ring because, you know, you can actually fucking resell the goddamned thing. It was as fight that I drug on for 5 years, but she wanted it badly enough even after knowing all the facts that I caved. I'm a hypocrite, but at least I have no dissonance about it.
The profit margins on diamonds at Mom n' Pop type joints is typically pretty thin because they can't buy inventory from wholesalers in large enough quantities. Hopefully you get a good deal, but I doubt they have much wiggle room. I was lucky enough to get my stone straight from a distributor, pre-wholesale, so it was a whole different story. I was stunned at the distributor price, per carat, of D color IF stones. Retail is something like $30K, I think, and their price was maybe $2K, if I recall correctly. Everybody in the loop gets a nice, fat slice of the pie.
I wish Facebook had birthday reminders for yourself, I almost didn't realize that today was in fact my birthday. I think hanging out with you old farts has made me feel older than I actually am, even though I'm sure upon meeting me you'd all think I was an idiot.
I ate like a fucking asshole this weekend. Time to teach myself a five-day-long lesson about self-control.
So yesterday, one month to the day before my 21st, I was awarded my first drinking ticket. The circumstances? It was a Park Ranger, at a quarry, at 3:00 in the afternoon. I brought two beers in a lunchbox cooler, and had put down 1.5 of them before he showed up. What. A. Cunt. My parents took it surprisingly well, but then again they know I brew my own beer and have had plenty of drinks with me. And to top it off I got hammered off of whiskey gingers, went to a party, got terrible head (my dick is fucking raw right now) from a girl who I'm pretty sure looked like IT the clown, left the girl's house afterwards at 5:30 in the morning because I was hungry and still hammered, got back to my place, realized I didn't have my keys, and then crashed on the other side of the duplex after waking one of them up. This morning I woke up with what I am sure brain cancer must feel like as a hangover to my parents calling to surprise me by picking me up to hang out with my dad on Father's Day at 10:00. My dad just laughed at me and said it was a good thing all he wanted from me today was to talk with him while he watched the U.S. Open. I love my dad. It's been a rough 30 hours or so. Time to reevaluate my life. Going into the research lab tomorrow is going to be a pleasant respite. I hope you guys enjoyed this bloggy post in the drunk thread, but it needed to go somewhere.
I contribute this: It's really silly at first, but then after a while you start to get freaked out. Just a warning.