Is it Gone?
Remember when I mentioned something had happened and I didn't know if there would be a happy ending or a life long tale of woe? Well, I still don't really know how it's going to end. It's looking like a lifelong tale of woe, but there's a small glimmer of hope. I can't decide whether to cling to it with all my might.
So here's the story. You should read it in slow motion, because that's how it happened. In extreme sloooooow mooooootionnn.
First, let me describe the scene to you. We had just survived a torturous day at the Pittsburgh Zoo. Torturous because Alexis was in a foul mood. And when Alexis is in a foul mood, Daddy is in a foul mood. And when Daddy is in a foul mood, I am in a foul mood. Anyway, we were riding down the very long escalator on our way to the car. Daddy was in charge of the stroller (we bypassed the elevators because of the 15-mile line). I was in charge of the Alexis. (Anyone with a one-year old is laughing at that sentence. No one is ever in charge of a one-year old. The one-year olds are in charge of us.) There had been many fights about whether Alexis was free to walk wherever she wanted to or not at this point. About halfway down the escalator, her constant screaming while I held her had me convinced that a social worker would be meeting us at the bottom. So I put her down.
She rode nicely down the escalator for a bit. Then she decided to start walking down the stairs of the escalator. She was blocked in by the volume of adults all around, so I let her. As we neared the bottom, the adults started to clear out of the way and she started to rocket her way down. I needed to pick her up. I wrapped my right arm around her. Then I slowly reached out with my left hand. She flailed. She screamed. She kicked. She kicked my wedding rings off of my hand.
Oh yes, my rings went flying just as we neared the very bottom of the esclator. I had some choices at this point. I could throw the screaming baby aside and rescue both of my rings. I could keep holding the baby and carefully rescue the nearest flying ring. I could just stand there and start screaming myself. I chose to hold the baby and rescue a ring. And then I watched the other one roll . . . and roll . . . and roll, not knowing whether it would be kicked up and over the escalator edge, crushed by the evil teeth as the escalator stairs turned to make their way back to the top, or what the fates of had in mind.
What the fates had in mind was to have my precious ring roll perfectly between the teeth of the escalator and plummet to whatever is below. I listened as the people behind me on the escalator gasped then inquired about what had just disappeared into the escalator abyss. "Just my wedding ring," I replied. Security was called, the escalator was reversed, and several people stared, confused as to why Daddy and I were staring at a moving escalator. But alas, the ring had not managed to grab hold to some part of the escalator and wasn't going to come riding back around. It was gone.
Then, the kindly security guard informed us that there is a pit--a pit!--below the bottom of the escalator. And the maintenance company would be by in just six short days for routine maintenance. They could look around for my shiny gold ring and try to rescue it from the debris that surrounded it. As the days passed, I worried about my poor little ring. And then Friday rolled around and I waited and waited for a call that would tell me that my ring was safe and sound. But the call didn't say that. Instead my friend the security guard said that they hadn't found the ring, but that they would check again next Friday.
So do I hold out hope that this Friday will be better than the last? Or do I continue on in my life knowing that Daddy will never let me forget The Day That My Wedding Ring Went Under The Escalator? I have yet to decide.
Oh, and if anyone finds a wedding ring under the escalator at the Pittsburgh Zoo, there just might be some sort of reward in it for you should you choose to hand the ring over to Tony, the bestest zoo security guard there ever was.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
