lost and found

Today I decided to clean out the car again because we're getting ready to go on another long trip, only this one isn't like a 10K, it's like a marathon. I deemed it worthy of a "real" cleaning.

Usually when I "clean" the car I pick out the trash, gather the toys in the back into a bookbag placed in the car for that purpose, zip over to the vacuum place near my house and vac out the "visible stuff". I don't move too much in the way of seats and such, and I have a $2 limit. $2 buys 2 rounds of the vac and that seems like it should be enough for a space as small as a car.

But, this time we're going on a Loooooooong trip, and I am going to need to utilize every inch of car, so I decided to pull the trunk out of the back. The trunk of our van is just a locking box, made just for our van and some kind of extra the dealership threw in to make us think we were getting another $400 off the price. It's beige, like the van interior, and it holds things like jumper cables, cargo bag, sun shades for the van windows, a box of Kleenex, etc. Only, it looks just like the floor of the van and after a while it just blends in and we forget that it's not the floor... so we never think to open it, and what it actually holds is jumper cables, a cargo bag I'd forgotten about, sun shades I've been looking for for months, a crushed box of Kleenex, a first aid kit duplicate to the one that's under my seat.

Nifty.

Today I opened it, and was distressed to learn that over the past years a bunch of leaves, sand, dirt has worked its way into the "trunk". So I removed it and started to pick out the items that were in there. When I removed it, I could see all the way under the 3rd row seat... which was a treasure trove of junk. One AA battery, about $1.30 worth of change, something shiny, a few crayons... which melted into the carpet by the way, and... wait a minute. Something shiny? What is that?

Flash back to just after the Shamrock 1/2 marathon in MARCH when after a particularly rowdy, uh, night, I had to take off my wedding band. I set it on my nightstand where it sat all night. The next day, around noon, I realized it was missing from my hand, remembered WHY it was missing, and went up for it. It was gone. Huh? Well, I'm sure it's around here somewhere. For a month I wasn't worried. And then I was worried. I came to realize that the longer it was missing, the less likely we were to find it. I tore my room apart. I tore my bathrooms apart (including the drains- uh, probably the grossest thing i've ever done, and I used to own a HORSE so that's saying something). I tore the playroom apart. I replayed all the times I'd randomly run the vacuum over a penny and thought- ah, that noise, it was just a penny. I quickly concluded that B had been in my room and stolen it. I scoured her room too. No luck. It was just gone. And so I quietly said goodbye to my ring. My beautiful ring. On our 11th anniversary we went out and replaced it with a very similar looking band of lesser quality and duller bling. H offered to get me a REALLY expensive replacement but I sadly declined.

The shiny thing? It was my wedding band. Missing for over 3 1/2 months- it came back to me! And, bonus- the car is WAY cleaner than it's been in the 92K miles that we've owned it because I was energized by my awesome find!