Lord of Just the One Ring
A few weeks ago I saw a man leaning over our fence and looking back and forth. It took me a minute to figure out who he was. The house belongs to one of my favorite neighbors of all time but when he and his wife divorced, he moved away and rented his place. I met the renters once when they moved in about a year and a half ago, but I can’t say I know them. They don’t chat across the fence like the favorite neighbor did and don’t acknowledge anyone with a wave or “hello” when they’re outside. This man was more than a little interested in something on our side of the fence and I went out to ask him if there was anything I could do to help. Suddenly we were best friends. It seems his girlfriend’s ring had been lost and he thought it might be it in our yard. I remember when our boys were in high school. One of their friends brought his girlfriend over and the ring he’d given her hadn’t yet been sized. She made a grand gesture with her arm and the ring went flying off, over our deck railing, and into the grass below. One of our sons rented — or borrowed, I can’t remember which — a metal detector. The ring was recovered and the relationship saved, if only for the rest of high school. Something like that may have very well been the case this time, but they have a wonderful dog they mostly ignore — and I’ve had a hard time not holding that ever so slightly against them — so I envisioned an argument during which one of them threw the ring, not caring where it landed. He gave me a detailed description of it and after a quick look around I didn’t see it but told him he was welcome to come over and do a thorough search. He considered, then discovered the ring near where he stood. I came inside, feeling gossipy and admittedly also a little excited to pass along the story. I saw the couple outside today and couldn’t tell if she was wearing a ring but they were holding hands so I assume everything is okay. There could be interesting story in there somewhere, but I’ll never know what happened. They’ve gone back to ignoring us.
Image courtesy of Mylene2401 at Pixabay.com
