Wedding Rings

A lady I work with was describing to us the look of mortification on her newlywed husband's face when he dropped his ring over the weekend. It reminded me of this story. Sadly, I don't remember exactly when it happened. I do think that we had been married for more than a year--maybe even a couple. I suppose if I really wanted to know when it happened I could consult the Visa bill. . . .

One Sunday afternoon, Dave worked in the yard laying paving stones down around the gates in our backyard in Austin; Mason liked to dig under the gates. Luckily, he's a big dog so he could never escape, but we didn't like the muddy mess he made. (Ah, we had Mason, so we had definitely been married more than a year.)

Being the meticulous builder that he is, Dave was digging down into the dirt to place the stones. He laid a base of sand to even out the pavers. Finishing the job, he came inside, showered, and cleaned up for the day. As he re-dressed, he missed his wedding ring. He went into the closet to extract it from the pocket of his jean, where he distinctly remembered placing it. The ring wasn't there. He looked around in the closet. No ring. We straightened up things in the closet, searching for the ring. Nothing.

Retracing his steps, the only place it could be was in the backyard. Perhaps he didn't take the ring off, but he remembered taking it off so that it wouldn't slip off. Up came all of the perfectly leveled pavers. No ring. We rented a metal detector to use in the back yard in our quest for the ring. Nothing. (We did find lots of roofing nails, but no wedding ring.) For days we inspected the mounds that Mason leaves behind wondering if he might have eaten the ring. No ring.

Days went by, and we accepted that the ring was gone. I remember thinking I could replace it for Valentine's Day or our anniversary, but I didn't. One day a few months later, on Sunday morning, I took my navy Aerosole pumps from their box to put them on to wear to church. Imagine my delight at finding Dave's ring in the shoe box!!! (Imagine Dave's chagrin that I can remember which shoe box the ring was hiding in, but not WHEN the ring got lost, after all these years.)

Dave must have really taken the ring off and put it in his pocket. When he took off his jeans and tossed them into the dirty clothes basket in the closet, it must have fallen into the opened shoe box. When we "cleaned up" the closet to "find" the ring, we actually hid it from ourselves. Isn't that ironic?