The Luck of a 20.5-Carat Engagement Ring

Humor by Diane Farr

Kim Kardashian is keeping me up at night. I'm not at all sure what this woman is famous for, other than having a beautiful face and a backside that America got familiar with via her sex tape while her and her sisters were also filming a reality show. And any triumph that I might have felt that a woman with olive skin and black hair who is larger than a size 8 surpassed being known for sex alone was squandered when Kardashian became engaged and the circus over her "score" began.

That would be for the 20.5-carat engagement ring given to her by Kris Humphries, a forward for the New Jersey Nets. Although Kim has said she was completely "shocked" by this, Kim has also been widely quoted saying, "I just knew I wanted it to be big!"

Of course you did, honey. That ring has to fill a gaping hole where the basis for a marriage would normally be. And it has to be bigger than your sister's 9-carat ring or we might confuse you girls with the Ingalls sisters of TV fame.

In case you missed these headline-news events: Kim and Kris met when she was dating someone else who is also vaguely famous and have known each other now, all told, for maybe six months. This will be her second marriage at 30 years old.

I've been married only five years and I live in abject fear of the institution. The overachiever in me knows the odds are completely against my marriage lasting a lifetime. Even more so because I only had one year with my husband before I became engaged. A whole year that I kept telling him no matter what you do, "Don't buy me a giant engagement ring -- because it's the kiss of death."

Take the original princesses: Grace and Diana. Big engagement rings were clearly not the cause of their demise, but still, this is not a plot point I want to insert in my love story after seeing how those turned out.

Moving onto the next-most-famous engagement ringer of the 20th century -- Liz Taylor -- also makes me want to run from a giant diamond. Liz was married seven times and given the biggest engagement ring known to mankind. And she still divorced that suitor. Twice.

The rest of the big rings that come to mind are those I remember seeing extensively in the "news" announcing an impending marriage -- soon followed up by discussions of their impending breakup or divorce, and if they made it that far, a custody battle. Eva Longoria, Mena Suvari and Renee Zellweger, as well as Britney, Christina, and LeAnn, all of Donald Trump's former wives, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton. Not to even mention politician's wives. How big is Huma Abedin's ring? Bigger than Maria Shriver's?

Any one of the engagement rings mentioned above could probably rebuild all of the houses wiped out by the recent tornadoes in America. Any one could also eradicate the lack of education for girls in Afghanistan or Iraq. But instead, what are we doing to the capable women in this country if Kim Kardashian's second engagement and the excitement displayed by both her family and the public about a marriage that will not likely see the next presidential election is showcased as something to be admired?

Now more is not always less. There are Catherine Zeta-Jones, Beyonce and Gwen Stefani. They all have ice skating rinks on their left hands and seem to have unions based on more than just the adrenaline of the first few years of a relationship. They all also seem to have some skills. Acting, writing, singing, designing, using their brains as well as their charms to build empires that are not entirely dependant on their looks or their popularity with the opposite gender.

I understand that Kim "works," as her fees for showing up at parties or lending her name or likeness to things (including credit cards, I recall) are terrifyingly high. But the skill set Kardashian utilizes to garner her press, make her money and "catch a man" leaves me close to fainting, when it comes to the message we are sending young girls.

I'd prefer one of my daughters to own a diamond mine. In fact, I'd like them both to own one of the media companies that publishes "news" about the Kardashians. And I couldn't care less what kind of jewelry either is wearing while doing so.

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