I lost the rings. Yes, that was plural. RingS. I could make a frail attempt to segue into that part of the story with a cleverly crafted prose but really, what’s the point? First it was hers. You see, I had taken their rings and ever so carefully placed them on the tiny embellished  door handle of the 1940 Daimler and just when I had lifted my camera to take the shot I heard the subtle “clink” of a priceless diamond hitting the cold concrete ground before rolling to the far side of the under carriage. Surprisingly enough it sounded eerily similar to the sound of my heart plummeting to the pit of my stomach. I popped my head up in view of Nikki and Christian cuddling to keep warm from the chilly afternoon breeze and with a dont panic, dont panic, don’t panic look on my face I said, well, “Don’t panic…but I  just lost Nikki’s ring”.  Thankfully the ring was just within arms reach but when I turned to replace it with Christian’s ring on the chrome handle I immediately noticed that now it too had vanished. This time there was a new sound, that of two pints of blood rushing to my cheeks. “Christian, did you get your ring?” I asked. He looked at me curiously before shaking his head. “Okay, now panic” I muttered to myself as I dropped back to my hands and knees in a frantic search of the second missing ring in 30 seconds. As I swept my hands back and forth looking for a grey ring on a grey background I recalled what Jack Handy, a writer for SNL in the late nineties had once said. “If you ever catch on fire, try to avoid seeing yourself in the mirror, because I bet that’s what REALLY throws you into a panic.” Funny,but had I found a match and a mirror prior to finding the ring I would have gladly put that theory to the test. 15 minutes later and growing more and more concerned by the moment the ring had yet to be recovered.  I had every pocket turned inside out. I had patted myself down like a frisky security guard at LAX. I had searched in the car, under the car, on top of the car. We had even expanded the search radius 15 and 20 feet out and combed the grass with our fingers and still nothing. And right about the time when I was contemplating the cost of a top notch metal detector I heard a voice ring out like Lindsay Lohan being released from rehab. “I found it!” I turned to see Nikki’s dad walking toward us in slow motion, the wind in his hair, prize in hand thrusting toward the sky. And for the first time since the ordeal began I breathed.  After all that it had simply dropped to the floor of the car and been hiding in plain sight all along.

As Christian slipped the ring back on his finger Nikki laughed and said “I bet you won’t blog about this!” which came out more like a dare than a statement.

Oh Nikki, just when I thought you knew me…