It's been years since the wife could wear her wedding ring, the proximal knuckle of her ring finger swollen from a break years ago.

Which is a long story, so let's just say it involved bucket seats, her left hand, my right elbow, and a blue heeler.

As the damaged joint swelled and calcified, she took to wearing the ring, loosely, on her left pinky. Occasionally wearing a larger three-stone ring won for her by eldest son on her ring finger.

But the absence of a wedding ring still drew looks. From a priest handing out Communion wafers, to strange men on the street.

Around Thanksgiving she came home from work, mentioning that a man who had dropped by their office was quizzing coworkers about her marital status. With serious intentions of approaching her with his interest.

So, when she started looking over rings this day, I wasn't totally surprised.

It was Tuesday, the day after the busiest shopping day of the year, and we had made our usual sojourn away from the shopping malls and discount stores. Instead, we were in the nearby mountain tourist town, perusing stores sleepy from the end of the tourist season. And owners happy to see any shopper.

Well, most owners.

The two little old ladies who own and run the Irish shoppe on the main street were actually in a bit of a snippish mood. When one asked the wife and youngest son if they needed any assistance, in a near whisper that I could barely hear standing beside her, they heard nothing. So she went past, muttering loudly to her fellow proprietor about these rude people that won't even acknowledge her.

When the family brought in their tiny little dog on a leash, despite the small "No Dogs" sign by the door, the two freely muttered to themselves, in front of the customers, about rude people who just haul their dogs right in.

So, perhaps it had been a looong Christmas season.

Or perhaps they're just losing their patience as the years go by.

I suspect they're losing their memories as well. Every year, when we make our inquiries about the rare Irish china the wife loves so much, they ask what state we're from. When answered, they always remark about all the nice people they get from that state. Yet, despite annual visits for many a year, they don't remember us.

I suspect "all the nice people" they know from our state is actually just us, they just don't know we keep coming back.

Their specimens of the Irish china were nothing the wife was looking for, so she and youngest son then casually looked over every other item in the store.

Literally.

Where some stores may carry a few Celtic cross necklaces, this place has four complete racks of silver crosses.

And another four racks of gold.

And Irish teas and cookies, videos, caps, hats... all you could ever expect from an Irish shoppe. Both the touristy trinkets of the faux-Irish items that American Irish have come to think of as "Irish", and those things that truly are Irish.

So this took a while.

Other customers came in, shopped, paid and left while we still browsed.

Finally the wife ended up at the counter full of rings. Four full shelves of gold and silver rings in a glass case, four to five feet of ring boxes, three boxes deep on each shelf.

I knew we would be there a while.

I had no idea.

Nor did the little woman, as she patiently pulled out ring after ring.

"The third to the left on the back row."

"The one that was just under your fingers."

"The last one on our left, third shelf, in the back."

On and on.

Most of these were claddagh or woven designs, and it was the woven, Celtic weave design the wife was interested in. But I didn't know she was serious until she tried on a weave lined with diamonds.

Oh.

We're here to buy a ring...

Fortunately, I talked her out of the diamonds. And her own tastes drove her away from the hundreds of other rings on the shelves.

But on the bottom, in one of those larger display boxes, were the older, out-of-production rings. All Irish made, but no longer manufactured. So the ring either fit, or it didn't. There was no way to get a smaller or larger one of any of the styles.

In the back row, four rings with simple, gold Celtic weaves.

One fit.