I rode my bike down to the university library yesterday to pick up an adviser-recommended book that, miracle of miracles, was actually available and actually on the shelf. On my way back to checkout, I had that brief moment of panic leading to the gut feeling that something is wrong when I checked my left hand, then my right hand, then my left hand again: my wedding ring (last pictured here) was gone.

I retraced my steps through the library in a quiet panic, then used my formidable powers of deduction.  The weather outside was stupidly hot, which makes my fingers swell; if the ring had recently fallen off, there’d still be a noticeable indentation on my finger where my finger had swelled around it.  There was no indentation, however, which meant that it must have slipped off my sweaty and sunscreen-slippery hand sometime during the past couple of days.  Which meant that it could be:

• On one of many major city roads and bike paths
• In one of two parks
• On either the Green or Orange lines of the Metro
• On one of two bus lines
• In the University library
• At the Grande Bibliothèque downtown
• Somewhere off the sidewalk of about a mile or two’s worth of road
• In or around my apartment
• In or around a friend’s apartment
• Within a multi-story federal office building.

As you might imagine, after a reasonable investigation of the easier-to-search above locations turned up nothing, I’m not holding out much hope that it’ll miraculously return.

Really, I’m just kind of miffed, but also a bit surprised that such a thing hadn’t happened earlier.  Relieved, too: if my engagement ring — which is much more unique, has much greater sentimental value, and would cost much more to replace — had been lost, I would have been very upset.  Since it’s my wedding ring, though, I mostly feel sheepish.  (Pete is also relieved, but because he’s the one constantly having his rings slip off his fingers and onto the floor with an accusatory clang! in the winter.  I just can’t scowl at him in the same way any more.)

Ironically, now that it’s been confirmed as missing, I have a moment of oh my God where’s my rin– oh, wait, I lost it every few hours.

At least I’m following in the grand tradition of my dad, who I’m informed is currently on his third wedding ring.  The first, if I remember correctly, was mysteriously and dramatically lost somewhere in the frondy depths of an extremely large Boston fern named Herman, and never resurfaced.  Herman, however, is doing just fine.

When I visit my parents in a few weeks, I’m going to stash my engagement ring in their safety deposit box for safekeeping until I can get it insured.  I mean, I can take a hint, universe.  In the meantime, I’m going to be trolling the internet for a very, very cheap replacement.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 28th, 2010 at 8:21 am and is filed under bits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.