I am talking physical pain. Let me explain….

Last week I am working on my mother-in-laws kitchen sink. It seems the hot water faucet was leaking. So I turn off the supply line and take the faucet off. Except I turned off the wrong supply line and when the faucet came off there was a geyser. Instinctively I tried to top the geyser with my left hand, but anyone who has ever seen this happen knows that did not work. So I reached down under the sink and turned off the proper valve. However, it was too late, the damage was done. See, in those few seconds I tried to stop the water with my hand it went from luke warm to scalding hot and burned me. So I ran to our kitchen and cranked up the cold water and put my hand under it.

So now you are wondering how this is tied to the title, well, if you noticed I said “my left hand”, you know, the one with the gold wedding band on it. Well, it turns out that gold does a VERY good job of absorbing heat and holding it. As the rest of my hand was cooling off I could still feel the heat from the ring. Except I couldn’t get it off. The finger was too swollen. By the time I was able to get it off with the help of some olive oil I had a nice round 2nd degree burn on my finger, along with some spots on the adjacent fingers too.

So next time you do some plumbing work, double check that you turned off the proper supply valve, and take the wedding ring off, just in case. The damn thing is still red and hurts, an that was last Sunday when I did it. Ouch!