Mom, do not read this. I'm serious.
Another scorching day. Another day spent by the A/C unit.
I didn't know whether I should write about this next topic or not. But, in the absence of further progress on the "de" construction (and at the insistance of my dear spouse), I shall now bring up a very VERY serious topic with all of you.
The matter of what to do with your wedding band during home improvement projects.
(Mom, stop reading now. Or you'll hyperventilate. Go find a good book or something.)
Once upon a time...
If you were anything like me, you would always imagine the VERY VERY worst thing that could happen YEARS in advance of any event. "What if I look REALLY AWFUL with gray hair?" "What if the other people at the retirement home don't laugh at my jokes?"
Things like that.
So the thought of sticking my hand into an unfinished wall in a very old house with my wedding ring on my finger plays back like this photograph over and over in my head.
(By the way, if you should need your very own Orc Banner, you can get it here. Isn't the Internet amazing?)
With that in mind, I decided last weekend NOT to wear my ring while we were mucking around with open walls and hammers and garbage bags of dirt and so forth. Which, I'll tell you now--because I know she didn't listen to me--is causing my mother to have heart failure this very minute.
Because she told me NEVER, NEVER TAKE IT OFF!
I grew up a tomboy and was never very good with jewelry and "stuff", although I adore THIS ring because this guy I dig kinda, you know, gave it to me and all. In fact, LIKING the ring is exactly what triggered the next little paranoid episode in this drama.
If it is not on my finger, WHERE should it BE?
So, I hid it. And I was quite clever about it too. I hid it away from dust and dirt and accidentally getting thrown out in construction mayhem and from the dog in my tiny jewelry box with my good watch (already chipped the face while working with it on), a pair of very pretty faux pearl earrings, and a coin from our trip to China. I was so clever about hiding this box that I could not remember where it was.
At all. This seems to be the curse of women in our family. My father is probably picking up my mother off of the floor right now.
So, after I panicked and cried and was consoled by my level-headed dear spouse, we checked a few places that I COULD have put it, while sweating and dizzy in the house with no ventilation.
We retired to bed to "sleep on it" so that "maybe I would remember where I put it if I relaxed." (My spouse's idea.) I did not sleep at all. I lay awake at 4:00 am staring at the ceiling and feeling completely miserable.
Dawn came. My spouse went to work. I started to rewrite the syllabus for the class I'm teaching this fall. And then abandoned it, grabbed a flashlight and room-by-room picked this house apart.
By 4:00 pm, with sweat streaming off of my brow, I found it. Even after I saw the box there, I had no memory of putting it there.
Under the mattress. Upon which I had lain awake. All night. Like a modern day "Princess and the Pea". (Which, can only be illustrated by Edmund Dulac, who was one of the best illustrators ever.)
And thus, the ring is being taken from this house for safekeeping and only the occassional wearing until de-construction is over. By my dear spouse. Who will know where it is at all times.
The End
(4)
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Comments
My dear child, Of course I read it.
You were right - I held my breath until the end of the story. It is obviously in the genes. You know how many times I have done that and will tell you about the time I lost and then found the locket your grandmother gave "you" when you were a baby at some future time. My wedding rings have been lost so many times your father considers it part of my "charm." Have a "cool" day.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 27, 2003 6:51 AM
When my husband and I moved into our house, I packed my wedding ring in it's special wooden ring case in a box that we brought over to the house ourselves (not trusting it the movers). In the midst of the move-in and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning, I happened to lose track of the box which had my ring in it.
After about a month I realized that this was serious and broke the news to my husband who was understandably upset. As anyone who moves into a house that you are restoring while living in it knows, only the things that are necessary for daily living get unpacked while the rest wait in boxes until the room they belong in gets restored. This amounts to a LOT of boxes to go through when one is looking for a tiny ring box. We went through all the boxes several times and couldn't find my wedding ring.
Finally, about three months and a lot of guilt and heart ache later, it dawns on me that I had placed the box in bedroom closet, hidden beneath a big pile of stuff in an attempt to foil any would-be thieves. My husband said he thought most theives would have found the ring anyway. I said too bad we didn't know any 4 months ago!
Posted by: heather | August 27, 2003 11:16 AM
This is why my wedding ring is a $47 silver celtic knot ring. If I lose it we will just go buy another.
Because, um, I have the tendency to lose it. But so far I've always found it again.
Posted by: Wendi | August 27, 2003 5:04 PM
Interesting that you have Frodo pics. My solution, that I learned from a pottery buddy of mine while laying bricks to build a kiln, is to put my ring on the neclace around my neck. It is hemp, and will not break, and then the rings never leaves my body. I like it.
I was at Home Depot, full of home construction debris, buying that one part that I didn't have and the helper looks at me and asks "Is that a Lord of The Rings Thing?". If only my wits would have been quicker I could have said, "Yes, now watch me turn invisible." Or "It is the ring of power and you will obey me." or many other things.
Posted by: Lloyd | September 11, 2003 9:27 AM