Lost and found

I married my wife in 2003. We decided we wanted silver rings, and that mine would be chunky and rough hewn, like it had been dug out of the earth and dusted off. We hired a silversmith and gave her these instructions: “Make it heavy and don’t polish it.”

But I lose things! It’s just what I do. I am a loser. And last September I lost my wedding ring, after 14 years of somehow managing to always almost keep track of it. It had been mini-missing many times, but it never stayed gone for long, because I was good at putting in places where I was bound to stumble on it again. But this time was different.

The inscription reads: “I chose you. ~ Paul”

The trail was cold before I even started a serious search. For days I had been assuming that it would turn up in a relatively obvious spot like it always does. Then there was a huge distraction. By the time I decided that it was time for a search, I couldn’t remember anything about when I’d last seen it.

I went through at least three major pocket searches in the early stages. I’m a clothes horse, so I have a lot of pockets. Big job, checking all those pockets. I moved on to “spots I might conceivably have thought at the time made sense, however unwisely” — nothing. Then I moved on to “spots it might have fallen/rolled into” — nothing. And then I did it all again. Twice. By this January, I assumed it was gone forever, somehow dropped somewhere I would never find it.

It was in a pocket. How it eluded me I will never understand. It was in a pair of favourite shorts. When I saw those shorts, I thought, “Where have those been? Haven’t seen those in a while… oh, hey…!” I tossed them on my bureau and heard a suspicious CLUNK, like the clunk of a heavy silver ring. But no, it was clunk of a heavy seashell. I rolled my eyes and came so close to just putting those shorts away. But I had been checking pockets obsessively for months, so why not a couple more? I felt the other pockets. And found my wedding ring in a sealed pocket, safe n sound. Right where I probably thought, six months ago, “It’ll be okay here. I’ll find it here.” Which it was, and I did… just not for quite a while.