It's a funny story....

:::sobs:::

So, I lost my wedding ring.

Yep.

I recently concluded that wearing my ring is a major pain in the ass whenever I try to put on gloves at work before applying or washing out a hair color, which is to say VERY OFTEN.  Every time I would pull one on my left hand, my ENORMOUS DIAMOND would slice a major hole in it, I'd be too busy to get a new one, I'd end up with a big brown color blotch on my hand. I looked like I had the bubonic plague (or perhaps had been wearing the Resurrection Stone a la Dumbledore. No? Sorry).

Then came Thursday.  In a whirlwind with my last client (she's family, love her, but her hair was a bit of a project that night), I'd removed my ring and put it either on my station (we have a tool tray that we use so we don't accidentally knock things over) OR in my pocket.  That day we were allowed to wear jeans for a special charity event.  I thought I'd put it in my jeans.... or had I?

Friday morning, I went to get ready for work and noticed I didn't have it... looked in the usual places and concluded that I'd just set it at work and would find it there smiling, sparkling, happy to see me.  It wasn't.  So then I told myself that it was at home, happy, content, waiting for my return.  It wasn't.  I told my husband my dilemma and he, like me, was teetering between "I'm sure it'll turn up!" and "HOLY SHIT."  He looked in my usual places and once again, we decided it must be at work.

I showed up for work Saturday with a knot in my stomach and a confused left hand.  I checked my station, knowing I wouldn't find it, and it truly then hit me: my ring was L O S T.  I had to reach out - I went into our breakroom and wrote on our white board "Urgent: Has anyone seen my wedding ring?! -Traycina" and left it at that.  My coworkers freaked out, asking me about it all day.  "Is this a joke?" "Did you find it?" "I bet it's in the laundry!" "OMG! What are you going to DO?!" (gotta love the ones who ask questions like that in a stressful situation.)  I even had a coworker kind of awkwardly try to hide it from my husband when he stopped in later, not knowing that I'd told him.  She's the one I'll ask to help hide a dead body someday ;-)

We came home after my super long day and my spirits were pretty low.  I'd forget about it for a few minutes and then remember and get REALLY sad.  We decided to check the laundry again, but this time go through it SUPER thoroughly.  We pulled out every item one by one, shook it, checked pockets, and shook it again.

FUNNY SIDE STORY:  2 years ago, B lost his ring in our last apartment.  It was gone.  We searched, same deal, didn't find it, ordered a replacement after about 2 weeks.  Mere days after ordering it, he finds the ring in the pocket of a clean pair of dress pants, which had been washed, dried, and hanging upside down in the closet for that entire time..... so we were meticulous about the laundry, as you can imagine.

We didn't find my ring, though.  I kept trying to find that glimmer of "I'm sure it'll turn up!" but it was dim.  I said a prayer to Saint Anthony, because my Catholic guilt made me.  My rings, after all, had been blessed by a priest in a Catholic church! Shouldn't there be some sort of tracking device?

B tried to cheer me up today, which was nice -- making jokes, being goofy.  We turned on Love Actually and wrapped presents, getting a little Christmas spirit going.  B, standing behind me, starts to whine about his hands hurting.  He has horribly dry hands from being a big hand-washer, and was complaining about how cracked they were.  I started to lecture him, looked down at his leprous knuckles, and saw a sparkly diamond ring...

:::sobs:::

He found it clanking around in the dryer (my husband does laundry, and no you can't have him).  Once again, he saves me from myself.  I cried, he cried, it was like a second proposal (except without the choir and the rainbows (yep, I had those at my proposal because I'm AWESOME)).

I said yes :-)