Fear? Panic? Ah, the life of a husband
I sat on the couch. The flashing glow of a sitcom about a stupid husband and his hot wife bounced off my face in a room darkened by the late, late hour of 8 p.m. My hot wife was already in bed.
Hey, to the parents of a toddler and an infant, 8 p.m. is like pulling an all-nighter. By 9 p.m. we start hallucinating.
Then something happened. Something so dark, so foul, I know Corporate America was behind it ... or quite possibly pixies.
While sliding into an advertising trance, I twirled something mindlessly with my fingers, realizing that, yes, I could make my whites whiter, and I'd be much more fun if I owned a Mac instead of a PC. Then, like my 32-inch waist, my dreams of being an astronaut, and my hair, it was just gone.
I'd lost my wedding ring.
Let me pause while the ladies gather rocks. Look by train tracks; railroad companies use granite.
Do you know how panic twists your intestines into a really uncomfortable ball that won't bounce? No? Well, then I guess you've never lost the everlasting symbol of your love.
Good lord, ran through my head. Although I recognized this exact formula from every 1970s TV comedy, I was sure in my case hilarity would not ensue.
I dropped to the floor.
The ring wasn't on the carpet. I checked by sight, hand swipes and the Snoopy dance in my bare feet. Under the couch cushions were something sticky, 24 cents and a two-inch plastic crossbow. And nothing but fuzzy Cheerios were on the hardwood floor.
Yes, I would have heard my ring dinging across wood, but after years of listening to Iron Maiden at decibel levels equal to that of having my head strapped to a tractor engine, I needed to check.
But the ring was gone.
This, I thought, is worse than telling my kids the truth about Santa Claus, or admitting to my wife I was actually in the witness relocation program and the paperboy doesn't come anymore because I "iced" him. Throw a paper in my bushes? I don't think so.
This is the unpardonable sin. The only thing that ever makes losing a wedding ring acceptable is if your finger goes with it in a thresher accident.
"Honey," I said, waking my wife because problems are a lot easier to deal with if: 1) you bring them up immediately, and 2) your wife's really, really sleepy. "I lost my wedding ring."
"That's OK," she mumbled, patting my hand. "It'll turn up."
She was like that the next day.
And the next.
And the next.
"You don't need a ring to show your love," she said in the tone Hollywood uses to scare people. "You're stuck, and there's no way out."
I eventually found the ring. It was buried so far in the couch I also pulled out three Smurfs, two Borrowers and a pixie.
Pixies. I knew it had to be pixies.
