We went up to Hendersonville, to the SMH to visit with my sister and her husband the weekend before Christmas. They had just moved in and wanted our help in hanging all their paintings, prints, diplomas, bits of memorabilia and whatnot. We originally planned on spending two nights, but by late in the second day, having finished hanging everything up, having not slept well on night one and me starting to feel a little sick, we opted to pack our bags after dinner and leave. This got us home early enough get a full night’s sleep in our own bed and not have to drive on the roads on Christmas Eve.
Part way home, Donna decided to put some hand cream on. As she always does, she removes the wedding ring from her hand and places it on the pinkie of my right hand to hold while she completes this task. Trouble was, there was no wedding ring on her left hand. A quick search of her purse and immediate passenger seat area turned up nothing. When we got home we made a more thorough search of the car interior and every nook and cranny of our luggage, but still no ring.
We figured the most likely spot the ring was left was on top of the dresser, in the bedroom we spent the previous night in. Donna does remember putting hand cream on shortly before we made the decision to pack up and go. She texted my sister to go in the bedroom and see if she could find it. The reply came that the ring was not anywhere to be found in there. Our speculation was that it probably fell off the dresser and hit the carpeted floor so it wasn’t heard and one of their pesky cats has batted somewhere not easily visible. We asked for a second check around and they still didn’t find it.
After a couple weeks, or about twenty thousand minutes, Donna felt funny not having a wedding band on, so we took her retirement watch that has been collecting dust for the last year and a half down to a local pawn shop and sold it. We then took the proceeds and walked next door to one of those perpetually Going Out of Business jewelry stores and bought a wedding ring as similar as we could to my band.
About 31,000 minutes after the wedding ring disappeared, it magically reappeared. My sister texted Donna that she had looked down, and there it was. Obviously our cat theory was right and now one of them had batted it back into the daylight. Yesterday we made a day trip to North Carolina to retrieve the wondering ring. While motoring along I-385 not far from Gray Court, SC the Lady Bug passed the 31,000 mile plateau.