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Pinky Ring [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-04-01

I lose stuff. Seriously, there is something wrong with my brain. It could be worse; there is nothing seriously wrong with my brain.

Nevertheless, I lose stuff. Why? I have a bunch of theories and diagnoses, some of which I made up. I joke I have CRS, Can’t Remember Shit. If you can’t remember where you put something, you don’t know where to look. I have AMPS, Absent Minded Professor Syndrome. (You’re right, I made that one up.) My oldest daughter suggests I have Executive Processing Disorder. I also have profound ADD. If I put something away, I can’t see it, don’t remember where I put it, and subsequently can’t find it. If I don’t put something away, I can see it for a little while. After that, other things I didn’t put away get piled on top of it until I can’t see it anymore and can’t find it. I think I may have suffered brain damage. I had three episodes of ECT, which one neurologist equates with doing as much damage to the brain as hitting someone over the head with a two-by-four. A couple of years after that I was playing Table Tennis and running to the right to get a ball, while the guy at the next table was running to the left to get a ball. Our heads collided. He got knocked out cold. I didn’t, and assumed I was fine.

Tomorrow, I have two things scheduled around the same time, about 11:30 AM. So today, I went to check my compact calendar book. I can’t find it anywhere. I distinctly remember putting in on my dining room table two days ago. That was the day I practiced reciting my lines for the comedy sketch I wrote, “Honey, It’s Time for Church! Did You Remember Your Gun?” My first line is, “Yes, dammit, but I can’t find it. It’s locked and loaded and ready for church, but I can’t find it anywhere.” In real life, I don’t own a gun. If I did, I would only lose it. I know all about the frustration of losing stuff.

You name it; I lost it. I lost keys, sunglasses, eyeglasses, umbrellas, cell phones, TV remotes, books, papers, pens, money, credit cards, debit cards, jewelry, watches, tickets, shoes, shirts, etc., etc., even a pair of pants. I once lost my car. It wasn’t stolen. I made a wrong turn walking back to my car from a restaurant in downtown Asheville. After forty-five minutes, I finally found my car.

It doesn’t matter how trivial or important something is, I am still just as likely to lose it. Is it old age creeping up on me? I doubt it. I had this problem all my life. When I in college I lost my retainer and kept losing the key to by dorm room. Finally, I put it on a lanyard I wore around my neck, and rarely took it off. Before college, I remember my mom chiding me. “If you had to pay for your glasses, maybe you wouldn’t lose them…Clean up your room, no wonder you can’t find anything.”

So on Saturday, I cleaned up my whole house. But I lost the calendar book after everything was cleared of clutter. Now that I can’t find it, there is no cluttered place for me to look. It has to be around here somewhere.

I have a confession. I didn’t clean the house to find the notebook, but I did clean up because I was expecting company, namely the person who agreed to be in the sketch with me. She came over so we could rehearse our lines.

Yet I had another secret agenda for cleaning. I was looking for something else I lost.

About two weeks ago I found a ring I had been missing. Missing isn’t the right word. I didn’t miss the ring; I forgot all about it. At least I think I forgot about it for a while, as the missing ring faded into the background of my subconscious mind. Then one day, a pang of remorse hit me: I lost both gold rings my father bequeathed to me before he died. One was his gold wedding band. The other was the gold pinky ring, designed to look like a cobra wrapped around my finger, with its protruding head atop the ring, with tiny ruby eyes, and a diamond embedded in the top of its head.

Over a year ago when I was wearing the gold wedding band, I washed my hands in some public restroom. Apparently, the soap and water caused the ring to slip off my finger. I didn’t realize it was gone until much later. Then it was too late. I had not removed the ring from my finger. I couldn’t even be sure where I lost it. It was gone. I was filled with grief and remorse. I felt like I betrayed my father’s trust. Not even trusting myself, I put the other gold ring that looked like a cobra, safely away. I was afraid if I wore it, I would lose it, too.

A couple of years later, I opened the small jewelry box and saw the cobra ring. I took it out and decided to wear it. Perhaps I had gained a few pounds in the interim. All I know, is that after a few days the ring broke apart along the bottom and fell off my finger. I picked up the ring and saw the small crevasse at the bottom of the ring. Now it fit but often pinched my finger when the two sides pushed together. I also feared the break would become worse. So I took it to the best jewelry repair shop in town. For $350 they added gold to enlarge the size, repaired the break, and polished the ring.

I wore it for a while, but for some reason, put it safely away again in a jewelry box.

Out of sight, out of mind. Of all the things I lost, I think I miss my mind the most. All I know is that, not long ago, I felt a pang or remorse that I had lost both of the rings my father gave to me. About two weeks ago, I went on a scavenger hunt looking into drawers I hadn’t opened in years, and into small boxes to see what, if anything, was inside. I found the gold Longines pocket watch my older brother got for his Bar Mitzvah in 1963. My brother passed away about twenty years later, and I inherited the watch. Two years after my brother got his watch, I also was gifted a Longines watch. Only mine was a wristwatch. I don’t know what happened to it. I don’t remember where, when, and how I lost it. It’s just gone.

I took the gold pocket watch to the same jeweler to see if it were worth repairing. The watch had stopped and only told the accurate time twice a day. The cost of the repair was more money than I would pay for a fine new watch. If I am keeping it safe as an heirloom, it really doesn’t matter if it runs. Besides, if I fix it, I’ll want to keep it in my pocket and I’m too likely to lose it.

Finding the old pocket watch got me to wondering what other trinkets or treasures might be concealed in boxes hidden in rarely opened drawers. It was then I found the gold cobra ring. I hadn’t lost it after all! I merely put it way somewhere safe, and after a period of time, I had assumed I had lost it.

I put it on my finger. I decided, just to be safe, I would only wear it around the house. Unless, of course, there was a special occasion where I was going out. I took meticulous care any time I washed my hands. First making sure that ring couldn’t go down a drain, and then curling my pinky finger as I washed so it couldn’t slip off my finger. There was no way in hell I was going to lose this ring.

I thought rich people who wore jewelry did so to impress other people. I discovered I liked looking at the ring, a cool intricate miniature work of sculpted art. I wore it more frequently, especially at home, and often disregarded my dictate to remove it when going out. After all, I reasoned, every time I take it off, I run the risk of losing or misplacing it.

I had recently misplaced it. What’s the difference between losing something and misplacing something? At first, there is no difference. But if, after a while, the item turns up, then it may be classified as only being missing. But if, after a while, the item doesn’t turn up, it may be classified as being lost. In the interim, you hope it’s only missing, but you fear it is lost for good.

Apparently fearing it might come off my finger inadvertently, I removed the ring from my finger and put it safely in my pants pocket. Of course, I later forgot I put the ring in the pants pocket. When I first looked for it, I felt a veil of pernicious panic sweep over me—until, at last, I reached into the pants pocket of the jeans I had worn a couple of days earlier. Eureka! Out of the pocket and onto the pinky where I could keep an eye on the ruby-eyed cobra.

Several days later, I looked down at my hand. The ring was gone.

This time, no veil of panic. This time, full-blown remorse and self-loathing. I hadn’t a clue where to look. I never took the ring off my finger. Since the finger was intact, the only possible explanation was it fell off. Where? Who knows? Hopefully at home. But I feared it fell somewhere else. Would some stranger find a man’s diamond ring shaped like a gold cobra? Even if the finder were impeccably honest, how could he possibly return it to me? I told no one. I was too ashamed. I saw no choice except to pretend I never put the ring on my finger and keep this dark secret to myself. Even so, I felt as though I had not only betrayed my father, but my daughters, as this family heirloom couldn’t be passed on if I lost it.

Saturday, my youngest daughter and her husband came over to visit briefly. My son-in-law agreed to cut my lawn for me as I had injured my leg. Normally I go to Asheville on Saturday to play Table Tennis, but my injury has kept me from playing for a month. I hadn’t eaten all day, as I expected to take my daughter and her husband out to dinner. After they arrived, they told me they just ate. It didn’t take long to mow the lawn, and I feared they would leave soon. Then the phone rang. It was a friend wondering how I was since I was still not playing Table Tennis. We talked a few minutes, then I said I had company and had to hang up. Before I could even hang up another Table Tennis friend called, also concerned. Again I said I had to make it a short call. I hung up.

Sure enough, as soon as I got off the phone my daughter said they needed to leave. I hugged her at the door, but decided I could step outside to wave goodbye. I only had to go down a couple of steps to stand in my front yard.

My daughter walked to her car, parked behind mine in the driveway. Perhaps I should have also walked to the driveway. All of the sudden, my daughter commanded me in a demanding voice, “Stephen, come over here!” She knows I hate it when she addresses me by my first name, as though I am a child, and not her, my youngest daughter.

“Is this yours?”

It was the gold diamond cobra ring.

I looked at my daughter and replied, “No, it’s yours.”

I insisted she keep the ring. Finders keepers. They drove off with the ring on her finger.

Now where the hell is my calendar?

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