La Jolla lost ring mystery solved.
Edith is a repeat customer. I had found one of her rings about 5 years ago that had been accidentally lost in her back yard, so, she knew who to call when she needed help again. This time, she had misplaced 6 rings! She didn’t remember having specifically removed the rings at any point, except maybe removing one of them while wringing out a wet vest. She wore two rings on one hand and the other four on the other, so I figured she had probably taken them all off at one time rather than losing them one at a time. Edith is in the middle of a move from her large wonderful home to a downsized apartment a few blocks away. As many of us know, moving is a royal pain, and with some of her items going to the new place, some going to charity, some to be sold, some just being thrown away, along with dealing with realtors, etc, you get pulled in many directions at once. It’s easy to get sidetracked and forget your exact movements and tasks. Some of the trash had already been taken away, so, there was always the possibility that the rings went with it. The job I was faced with was looking through scores of boxes, bags, and her vehicle to see if the rings could be found. I brought my wife along with this hunt, as, it was going to be more visual than detectable. I also brought my endoscope kit for checking all the nooks and crannies of her car. We first eliminated her house where the donation boxes were and some of the items to be taken to the new place. Nada. We then headed to the new place where we first searched the master bed room with all it’s boxes, and the master bath next to it. I did run across a couple of rings in one suitcase, but, they were the ones that had belonged to her husband who had passed away a few months ago. She was happy/sad/emotional in seeing those, as they matched two of hers that we were still searching for. While my wife finished going through the last of the wardrobe boxes, I went down and searched the car. Still nada. Back upstairs in the apartment, I stood in the entryway trying to decide what to do next, if anything, as I was running out of options and came to realize that they just might not be here, or, that they were in some very unlikely spot that might not be found for months, or, at least until all the boxes and bags had been unpacked and emptied. Maybe not even then if the rings had been accidentally tossed out in the trash. We had been there more than 3 hours and had searched virtually all the likely areas that Edith had accessed during the time between Saturday afternoon when she knew she had the rings, and Sunday morning when they were discovered missing. Time to call it? Well, I turned around to assess the remaining boxes in the entry and living room when I spotted another box down the hall and sitting in another room….another bathroom that I didn’t know was even there. I went into the 2nd bath and looked through a box on the counter direcly to the right. Nothing there, so, I turned to look in the rest of the room. There, sitting in plain sight on top of the far side of the sink were all 6 rings! The photo shows where they were found, but, they were more bunched together and sitting just left of the shell when I spotted them. Edith would have found them eventually, but, she was so happy and relieved that they were found now and that the symbols of her love with her husband Jim hadn’t been thrown away. A pleasure to help you once again Edith, and thank you for the generous reward.
