I'm allergic to marriage.

Oh, hello, blog world. It's me. I suppose I've been neglecting you. Let me make it up to you by telling you a story.

Two nights ago, I woke up multiple times, uncomfortable and panicked about my wedding ring.

Well, actually, my ring finger.

It was sore, and painful. It was the middle of the night though, so I wasn't coherent enough to do anything about it other than twist my ring around and aggravate it a bit before falling back asleep.

In the morning, I woke up and realized my ring finger was red and swollen. I tried to slip my ring off.

Uh-uh. Not gonna happen.

My poor finger was so irritated and swollen, there was just no way I was gonna get this ring off. My ring is normally just exactly the right size, a teensy bit of give so that it's not uncomfortable but not enough to spin around freely. In cold weather, it tends to spin a bit as my blood vessels constrict.

But swollen finger + just-right-sized wedding ring do not mix. The thing wouldn't come off.

I kind of hoped my drive into work would do the trick to get my hands cold enough that the swelling would go down and I could slip the sucker off. Unfortunately, it was an unseasonably warm morning, and although I purposefully tossed my gloves aside and didn't turn the heat on in the car, my finger stayed angry and swollen.

I got to work, and started to get a little panicky, envisioning me having to call the fire department to cut my ring off my finger (do you call the fire dept for that sort of thing? In my head it made sense but now that seems utterly ridiculous). I Googled some ideas (everyone knows Google is the foremost authority on everything in the universe, I always say if you can't find it on Google, it's NOT WORTH KNOWING) and grabbed the jar of lotion I keep at my desk and applied it liberally to my left hand.

Actually, Google told me to try the lotion after soaking my hand in a bucket of ice water for 15 minutes, but I'm a working woman and that seemed way more trouble than I was ready to deal with.

The lotion worked. The ring slipped off.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, then stared in shock at the seeping wound on my ring finger.

Not only was there a band of angry redness where my ring used to be, but there was actually an open sore. It was so inflamed and red that at first glance it still looks like there is a flipping ring on my finger. (A weird, ugly, red ring with a setting of seeping nastiness, sure, but you get my drift.)

I can't figure out why this would have happened. I've worn that ring for 10-and-a-half years and it's never caused me any problems. I haven't changed soaps or cleansers or detergents or anything that might have gotten stuck under my ring and festered. I lift weights 3 times a week, but always wear my lifting gloves, precisely so that I don't have to take my ring off.

I never take my ring off.

Except for in the ninth month of pregnancy, when my hands are swollen and icky. And then I spend the whole last month and a half thinking I look like some kind of unwed tramp and assuming everyone I come in contact with that doesn't know me is all judging me in my unmarried, super-pregnant state.

Sometimes I get a little paranoid.

Anyway, I'm gonna give my finger a few days to recuperate, and then try it again. Hopefully I can make it another ten and a half years before this happens again.