missing rings

I came home from work last night just exhausted and ready for bed. Every light in the house was on, and DH was nowhere to be found. I heard him poking around in the other room, so I said "Hello!" and went to check my email. After a few minutes I thought it was strange that he hadn't come to see me and kiss me hello yet, so I asked him what he was doing. No answer. I asked him again, still no answer. I poked my head out and said, "What's wrong?" He came slinking into the office, shoulders slumped, hands in his pockets, head down, looking about ready to cry. If he had a tail, it would have been tucked between his legs.

Crap, I thought, someone died. He didn't even make eye contact with me as he said, "I lost my wedding ring."

Backstory. He has a habit of taking his ring off and putting it in his pocket. When he uses the restroom, when he's on the computer, when he's home. He only wears a ring at all because it's a really cool interactive kinetic sort of ring, with floating pieces that move around. I got him a "toy" for a wedding ring on purpose, so he'd wear it at all. He's just not a jewelry person, but he loves this ring.

And I've told him for five years that if he lost it, I would not be a happy camper. It's pretty unique, and it was hard to find five years ago. I couldn't find one like it again, and the designer has stopped making them.

He, of course, was expecting nothing but rage at his announcement that it was gone. Screaming, ranting, possibly an attempt on his life. Especially in my very pregnant and hormonal state. But honestly, it just made me very very sad. I said, "Oh, that sucks," and that was about it. I mean, me yelling at him wouldn't make me feel any better, and it certainly wasn't possible to make him feel any worse. He'd already torn the house apart looking for it, and had dreaded seeing me all day long.

We retraced our steps, and realized it probably happened at our birthing class on Saturday. Our anniversary. I had asked him to take it off for a minute as we were doing an excercise with our hands and it was hurting me. The one time I actually asked him to take it off.

We both hit the internet hard, looking for the same ring. We found similar ones, but nothing that really came close. I ended up breaking down and crying, which broke his heart. I think he'd rather I just yelled at him, but it wasn't in me. I was sad, not angry, and I felt bad for him because he was so sad too.

So I made dinner and we curled up on the couch, me to watch tv and he to continue his search via laptop. He kept saying how much he sucked, and how we should just get him a cheap nothing ring since he couldn't be trusted with a good ring and would probably just lose it again. I finally got up to take a shower and go to bed.

As I was walking by the office, I happened to look down at an ottoman we had piled with junk as we were cleaning up the house. It was dark, and I saw a small circle sitting there. Thinking it was just a keyring or something like that, I picked it up anyway just in case. It was his ring.

I walked back into the family room - I must have had an odd look on my face, because he looked alarmed when he saw me. I just handed it to him.

He made me show him where I found it. And we figured out what happened.

He didn't lose it at the class (obviously), he just couldn't remember having it since then. He had apparently taken it off at home and put it on his nightstand - a dumb move, really, because we have four cats, two of whom think they're raccoons. I can not tell you how many shiny objects we've lost, only to find them later under an area rug. In fact, while tearing the house apart he managed to find a charm I lost a couple of years ago, because I'd left it on the bathroom counter and our raccoon-kitty batted it under the rug. Apparently, the same raccoon-kitty found his ring, thought "Ooh, Shiny!" and decided it must be taken.

We're lucky the cat gets distracted easily. He probably was startled by someone coming in the room, or a piece of dust floating by, and forgot all about the ring as he scuttled back under our bed. And then forgot all about it.

DH was SO relieved! He has never hugged me so tightly as he did when I handed him the ring. He kept thanking me for not killing him, for not screaming at him. Which, let's be honest, I really had every right to do. The screaming bit, anyway. But like I said, it wasn't going to make me feel better, and he could not possibly feel worse.

We're going to photograph the ring, and DH is talking about ways of "backing it up" (yes, he's a geek ;-). At least with photos we'll have something to take into jewelry stores and say "Find/Make us this."

All's well that ends well. And you can bet he didn't take that ring off for the rest of the night.

He did ask me if I was going to blog it. I told him no. He said I should, it was funny. I told him it wasn't funny yet. Today, it's a bit funnier. But he'd still better not take that ring off.