Lord Of The Ring

I have a few rant topics, but they got backburnered for this story. This is the story of how I lost my wedding ring. I’ll call it Lord of the Ring. Not because there are any Lords, or even Hobbits or Wizards for that matter. It does involve a ring. My ring. Which I lost. Here’s how.

Pay attention to these details. There will be quiz.

I went to visit my parents over the summer. They have a swimming pool. This plays a part in the story. Present were both of my parents, my mom’s friend from out-of-town (and country), my sister, my wife, my son (who was still inside of my wife), and me. I decided to go swimming which I almost never do. As I got changed, I took off my ring (mistake number one), and put it in the pocket of my shorts (mistake number two), which I left on the couch in their office on the main floor. When I was done swimming, I went to the bathroom to get changed. My wife offered to grab my clothes for me, which she did, and I changed in the main floor bathroom. This is no more than 20 feet away from where the clothes were sitting while I was swimming. I put my clothes on, but forgot to put on my ring (mistake number three). I had a drink, I had dinner, and I probably stayed for a cup of tea. I might have sat in about 3 different chairs. Later we went home. Five minutes after I got home, I remembered about my ring, and I checked my pocket. It wasn’t there. I checked my night table in case I had already emptied my pockets. It wasn’t there. I checked the floor in case it had fallen during the transfer. It wasn’t there. I called my dad and explained what happened. He started looking in their office. I went out to check the car. I couldn’t find it. I called back. He couldn’t find it. I got back in the car and drove over there. My parents and their house guest were out on the front lawn with flashlights (as it was now dark outside), looking for my ring.

Was it…….

a) in the bathroom? Did it fall out when I put my shorts on? Wouldn’t I have heard it rattle around as it hit the floor?
b) in the office? Under a couch cushion? On the floor? There is a rug in there, so if it fell out, I might not have heard it depending on where it landed.
c) anywhere in or out of the house where I might have sat? I did sit out on the deck. Did it fall out of my pocket, roll in between two boards, and fall under the deck?
d) in the house guest’s luggage? It was on the same couch in which my clothes were while I was swimming. Did it fly out into her open suitcase?
e) outside on the front lawn or in the garden? Did I casually yank out my key chain on the way to the car which has enough keys to have legitimately pulled the ring out, and flung it into the bushes?

The answer?? None of the above.

We gave up our search that night, and they vowed to look again in the morning when there was more light. I headed over the next day to look for myself. Nothing! How could this happen? It could only be in a few places. It’s not like I lost it at an amusement park or a shopping mall. It’s my parent’s house. I knew that it was gone 5 minutes after I got home, so it’s not like I lost it from the front door to my bedroom. I checked the car again. We checked my parent’s place again and again. Nothing!

I have to give credit where it’s due. My wife was really cool about it. Some women wouldn’t have been. I just felt sad about it though. I was only married under a year and a half when it happened. At least I still had my wife. I could always get another ring, but it wasn’t that much of a priority, plus I always held out hope that it would show up one day. As the fall came around and the lady that helps my mom out with her gardening did one last search outside, I knew I was going to have to get used to the idea that this ring was gone.

Tonight I went grocery shopping. My grocery store has a ‘coinstar’ which is a machine that you can dump all of your loose change into, and it counts it for you, and gives you a voucher so you can get money from the cashier. I have a bin that I throw all of my loose change into, and then when I’m about to go on vacation I’ll see how much I have, and use it as spending money on my trip. It was actually overflowing, so even though I’m not leaving yet, I had to bring it in early. As I started to feed the money in, didn’t my goddamn wedding ring jump out of the pail and into the coinstar machine. (So I obviously went home that night, emptied my change and inadvertently, my ring into this bin, and then 5 minutes later thought about the ring, and spent months looking everywhere except one of the most obvious places.) As soon as I saw it my mind could barely comprehend it in time. I had to first process what it was, and then grab it quick before it jammed up the machine. I can just picture the emotional rollercoaster of finding my wedding ring which I thought I’d never see again, and then losing it in the coinstar machine and the fiasco that would have ensued with me trying to get it out of there.

I was so excited that I called my mom. My father passed away in the fall, so he doesn’t know I found it. Or maybe he does. I just wish I could have told him this story. He would have laughed his ass off.
🙂