Diamond dilemma

So if you know me you might already know this story. It's not a big secret. The diamond I've been wearing on my married finger for the last couple of years is a big fat fake.

I originally had a very pretty little quarter-carat solitaire to go with my plain gold wedding band. G and I chose it together at the mall jeweler in Alaska in January 1993. It was the ring I always wanted, simple and small but very good quality.

And then life happened, kids happened, and I quit taking it in to be cleaned and re-pronged. I started forgetting to take it off before bed. Sometime around 2001, I went to bed with a diamond ring and woke up with a very prickly gold ring. I searched to no avail. It's possible the diamond went down the heat vent (or hent veet, as S called it in those heady days of funny toddlerisms). Never to be found.

I wore my plain gold band for a few years. I'd never had them fused (welded, or however they do that) because for the first couple of years of my marriage I was going to camp with the Young Women. I wanted to be able to remove the diamond for safekeeping in that situation and others but keep wearing the wedding band. And that came in handy after the hent veet incident.

But I missed the sparkle. I'm not a glitzy girl, honest! I hardly even have any other "real" jewelry. Plenty of glass and gemstones thanks to Dana (whose Charmed Designs blog is new at right, by the way) and the Silver Jewelry Club, but no expensive stuff. I did like that little diamond, though. I liked looking at it under bright lights, particularly in the temple. Something about that seems a little wrong but I swear to you it never looked prettier. There were rainbows in there.

So when I started working, one thing I wanted to do was to go sparkly again on the left ring finger. I opted for a tasteful fake. Okay, tasteful fakes are hard to find. I opted for a big fat fake. 2 carats of cubic zirconia on a gold plated band from Palm Beach Jewelry ran me about $60. The compliments poured in, I tell you. If I really like you I confided in you about the hent veet and the fakeness. If you didn't know until now ... sorry.

Actually I told almost everybody. If you've seen the darn thing and didn't know until now that it was fake, I would be very surprised. I realized I didn't want everybody to think I was a 2-carat diamond kind of person. It would have been a little ridiculous.

But a prong broke on the fake last week. So I am back to wearing the plain gold band, and I'm left with some interesting options.

1. Put my tail between my legs, head into a real jeweler, and get the prong fixed on the fake solitaire.
2. Get another fabulous fake-o.
3. Save pennies for a real quarter-carat to go in my original setting.
4. Just wear the darn band since I am obviously not responsible enough to own a real diamond OR a giant fake one.

What kind of sparkle do you think you'll see when you next meet me? Besides my stunning wit and personality, of course.