So, when I was six years old, I was at Chinese school one Saturday morning when I bent down to tie my shoe lace, which had come undone.

When I looked down, I noticed this pretty diamond ring lying on the ground. Or at least I thought it was a diamond ring. I mean, at six, you don't know the difference between diamonds and cubic zirconia, you know?

And unlike my friend's mother, who told her to never pick up anything off the ground, because, you know, it could be, like, bait from Satan and likely to be evil --- this will all be explained later if you continue reading through this tedious story --- I picked it up and took it home.

And unlike other kids, who are bound to lose stuff like that, I was careful. I kept this ring nestled in my jewellry box and only took it out to admire.

But then, I started noticing a pattern.

Every time I took it out and looked at it, something bad would happen --- andwhen I say bad, I'm really talking about the stupid, run-of-the-mill break-your-heart, hurt-your-feelings type stuff that comes part and parcel with most childish love affairs.

I started thinking of it as the "bad luck ring".

Every time I took it out, something would happen with the boy I liked at the time.

Sure, it could have probably been explained by any number of things, but I chose to believe it was bad luck associated with the cursed ring.

Yesterday night, I was laying out my outfit for today and going through my jewellry box when I found the ring.

I decided it was time to get rid of it.

Okay --- so while I'm not a believer in leprechauns and fairies and I normally turn my nose up at the notion of luck or fate or destiny, I do believe that paranoia can make you believe pretty much anything.

I'm almost 28, damnit. Two years from 30. A little bit closer to dying alone in a pit of my own filth, only to be discovered by my neighbours when the stench of my rotting corpse becomes too unbearable to ignore.

Sure. My lack of a love life probably had nothing to do with the bad luck ring, but last night, I decided I needed to get rid of it.

End of story.

(Or so I thought.)

When I told C about it and about how I planned on leaving it somewhere --- like in an ash tray or maybe on a park bench for someone else to find, and thereby, transferring the shitty luck in the love department over to someone else.

She thought it would be better to leave it in a church, thereby neutralizing the evil stemming from the ring.

So, that's what we did.

We went to a church at lunch, left it in the second pew and the hightailed it out of there.

But then N, in an email, said, "How the hell could you bring a thing of evil into the Lord's house?"

I might not be into organized religion, but like I said before, I'm paranoid.

After a lot of back and forth, I was sufficiently paranoid enough to firmly believe I was damning my soul to hell by leaving the evil ring in a church. I didn't know what I thought would happen --- like the church would burn down as a result? I don't know.

All I do know is that I abruptly left my desk in the afternoon, pretended I was going to the washroom, but instead, took the elevator down to the main lobby and then hightailed it back to the church, frantically looking for the cursed ring.

Unbelievably, it was still there.

"Look, Frodo, the burden of destroying this ring is your responsibility and your's alone," C said melodramatically. "You're going to have destroy it with fire."

I didn't like being called Frodo, but I was beginning to identify with him.

"Yeah, but didn't they have to toss it into, like, a volcano or something to destroy it in the movie?" I asked. "Where the hell am I going to find a volcano in Toronto?"

Everybody at work thought the whole ring story was hilarious --- how I was convinced it was now not only tainted with bad luck but actually cursed.

I kinda thought that if I tossed it somewhere, I'd run the risk of having the bad luck transferred to someone else --- and like Earl, I do believe that karma will come back and bite you in the ass.

To make a long story short, I was washing my hands in the washroom when it hit me: dump the ring into the sanitary napkin receptacle 'cause nobody's gonna be digging through that and getting their hands on the ring. And if that stuff gets incinerated, then isn't that the same thing as tossing the ring into a volcano?

I was so impressed with myself, that I would have given myself a high five if I could.

But I didn't.

What kind of nerd did you take me for?