Twins of the Lamb.

I think one of the reasons I was so freaked out by yesterday’s “de-ringing” incident was that, I really really love my wedding ring. I mean adore it. I have more costume jewelry than you can shake a stick at, but the thing I love most is the huge ball-buster hunk of titanium that is my wedding band.

Long story short, when we were shopping for wedding bands I couldn’t find one that didn’t suck, so while FrenchBoy was getting fitted for his ring, I stuck my finger out and said, “Just give me the same one.” The salesdude was a bit baffled at first, but with a bit of coaxing we got him to order two identical rings for us. We ordered engraving on the inside of each band, but the metal was too hard. The engravings didn’t really take. And years of wearing them has left the so-called engravings rubbed so shallow and faint that now only one of those hi-tech microscopes that the scientists on CSI Miami could detect that they were ever there. Tant pis.

I love wearing a men’s wedding band. Although I can girlie-it-up with the best of proper French ladies, I’m also the kind of “lady” that enjoys wearing Harley-Davidson motorcycle boots. That’s just the kind of girlie-girl I am. And on a practical note, a big chunky titanium band is heaven for people like me who work with their hands. Paint and India ink wipe right off it. It’s perfectly indestructible. And most importantly, whenever I look at it, I think about how FrenchBoy is wearing the exact same ring.

In fact, we do this thing. It’s a stupid inside joke that began with one of many incidents where I made a French language pronunciation mistake. You see, years ago I didn’t know the difference between the French word anneau -which means ring, and the word agneau - which means lamb.

(Dude, go listen to the sound clips. They sound almost the same.)

So one day, I was just looking at my wedding band I looked over at FrenchBoy and I tried to say "We’re ring twins!” But instead I blirted out “Nous sommes des jumeaux des agneau!”, which kinda means “We’re Lamb Twins!” I still thank God we were home alone when I made this mistake. (To my credit, at least I never used the verb baiser when I meant to use the verb s’embrasser!) Ever since that one first slip up, which resulted in laughter so hard that it inspired tears, FrenchBoy and I have been “Lamb Twins” and to this day I refuse to correctly pronounce the word anneau.

So now, every now and then I look down at my ring and then turn to FrenchBoy and ask: “On es encore les jumeaux des agneau?” (“Are we still the Lamb Twins?”) In response he wordlessly raises his ringed hand in the air, palm facing towards me. Then I run at him and give him a really hard high five. With any luck, on the first try, our wedding bands collide making a dull, metallic clicking sound as we collapse into laughter and cheers. On the rare occasion that my aim is a little wonky and I miss, and our rings don’t touch, I just keep smacking the hellout his hand over and over again until our rings finally make contact and then …we collapse into laughter and cheers.