You slide the shiny gold ring off your finger and there it is: that telltale green stain that says your new bling isn't quite so many karats as you thought.
That disappointment, with just a hint of betrayal, is what we're feeling about the Olympics right now.
Behind the Olympic stories about the triumphs, the heartbreaks and the heroes are darker stories of labour camps, child athletes and sweatshops.
They are the green stain beneath the Olympic gold.
There are several stories that caught our eye and cast a pall over our enjoyment of these Olympic Games.
Now that the Games are over, most returning Canadian athletes can look forward to a warm welcome and the love and support of their families and communities whether or not they have brought home a medal.
North Korea's 56 Olympians are not so lucky.
According to former North Korean athletes who had defected and who spoke with an ABC News correspondent, those who fail to win in London, especially those who lose to arch-enemies like South Korea or the United States, face imprisonment and even torture in the secretive communist nation's brutal labour camps.
China's athletes may not face labour camps, but many are denied any freedom in their own lives.
Chinese athletes say government officials seek out children as young as six who show potential. Whether they want to or not, the children are sent to sport schools where their entire lives are re-dedicated to athletic training.
Other academic subjects are often left by the wayside, leaving the children with no other employable skills when their sporting careers are over.
Visitors to these schools report seeing signs the children are physically abused.
And once again, it seems the polished pride of an Olympic host city comes at the expense of compassion.
In East London, the Clays Lane Estate, the U.K.'s largest housing cooperative, was demolished to make way for the Olympic athletes' village, depriving more than 500 vulnerable people of their homes. New laws gave London police more power to penalize the homeless "sleeping rough" in central London, shifting them to the margins.
It followed a pattern long-established in other Olympic cities - Barcelona, Athens, Sydney, Beijing and even Vancouver and Whistler - to sweep their poor and homeless under the congested carpet of urban life to create a Potemkinesque facade of civil perfection for the eyes of the world.
Even as British government and International Olympic Committee officials banned Syrian government officials from attending the Olympics for human-rights abuses, official Olympic uniforms and merchandise fell under a human-rights cloud.
Journalists discovered that the plush toys of the Olympic mascots were manufactured in Chinese factories where workers were forced to work up to 120 hours in overtime a month in unsafe conditions for as little as $9 a day.
Meanwhile, British athletes were strolling about in their official uniforms manufactured by Indonesian factory workers toiling 65 hours a week for 53 cents an hour.
Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, once said: "Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles."
The job of the IOC is not simply to choose Olympic hosts and organize the Games. It also has a duty to uphold the high ideals Coubertin established more than 100 years ago.
It's clear more effort is required from the IOC to take the tarnish off the Olympic gold.
www.freethechildren.com
