Tah-Dah!
My Sketcher Shape-Up Shoes
that were lost now are found.
I didn’t realize they were missing for two days
until I went to the gym again and could not find them.
Of course, they were not in their "Lost and Found".
Nothing ever is.
And it takes an act of congress to get in there.
I had to talk to myself very hard saying
“It’s not the end of the world.
It’s only $90 shoes. (Of course, I got them on sale but that is what it would cost to replace them.)
And $180 inserts.
You’ll live.”
Amy and I went out and bought me another pair of Sketchers for $30.
Not Shape-ups but comfy.
I was mollified.
Somewhat pacified
but I couldn’t quite let it go.
So Monday--12 days after the shoes went missing--when we went to the gym
I bothered them again to look in the lost and found.
We sorted through soggy clothes
and searched each shelf.
Nothing.
Before we swim, I check lockers in the women’s change room.
Bang. Clang.
Empty. Empty. Empty.
I must have looked in more than 100 lockers –
The ones closest to where I change.
After the swim, last minute I decided to check another bank.
I was almost to the end when I heard someone come in.
I’ll have to stop.
I don’t want to be banging lockers when someone else is in here.
They’ll think I’m stealing.
This will be my last one.
Trash.
I slammed it shut.
Wait.
Something black under the rubbish.
Opening the locker again, I plainly see “Ske – “
Can you believe it?
Both Sketchers Shape-up shoes, socks, and insanely expensive inserts.
I kissed them.
I’m that foolish.
Ugly things.
I knew no one would wear them.
But I thought the Jr. High kids
might have put them in the trash.
I suppose it was too far away.
Next time at the gym on Wednesday, I checked:
There are 218 lockers; I usually use locker #212.
The trash--Rice Krispies TREATS;
Mini Chips Ahoy! Chocolate Chip cookies; and
3 Musketeers candy bar wrappers--was still in locker #124.
The lockers were not as far apart as the numbers would indicate--
kitty-corner across the isle from each other.
I’m so lucky; oh, so lucky.
You know how they say everyone has a gift.
Some have one gift and some have another.
I think I’ve finally found out what my special gift is:
****It’s finding unfindable things.****
Remembering my hand-tooled leather purse
that Brent made for me when he was 12-years-old?
He has just found out he has an incurable kidney disease
and can’t go on a mission so we’re down at BYU
trying to find him housing.
Stupidly I leave my purse on the top of the car
as we drive off.
We realize it within a few blocks and rush back
but someone had picked it up.
Within a few hours they had charged around $5,000
on my credit cards.
Oh yes, toys, children’s clothes, things like that.
BYU students, no doubt.
I never carried more than one credit card after that.
They even charged on an expired card.
Several months later, I receive a call from the Orem Police.
They found my treasured purse in the Orem Post Office garbage can.
As I toiled in the vegetable garden, I thought,
"If I hadn’t lost my purse, I would never have felt this elation in finding it."
And five years later, Brent went on his mission!
The library was across the street from the gym in Ogden.
We often stopped in the library after the gym.
I know I had my wallet at the library to check books out
but the next time we left for the gym
I couldn’t find it.
Amy was going with us and didn’t have a permanent locker
so I was searching for an empty locker for her.
I opened one locker and quickly closed it because
it had a wallet in it.
A wallet?
It looks like my wallet.
It was. The money was gone but everything else was intact.
This is the mystery.
If I lost my wallet at the library,
someone who found it must have known where my locker was.
It was the closest day-use locker to my locker.
We had to cancel all our credit cards again
when someone tried to buy a house in Nevada using my credit card.
Wells Fargo saved our bacon.
I left my camera setting on the bench at Rainbow Bridge.
I was heart sick. All my Lake Powell pictures. (We didn't know it at the time but it was our last trip to Lake Powell.)
Are you getting the idea that I might not have a gift at all
That I’m stupid –
And just plain lucky?
We were up the river quite a ways before I finished searching
and decided definitely it was missing.
Several weeks later, we get a call from Princess Cruises.
Someone had turned it in at Dangling Rope Marina.
By some fluke, my cruise card was still in my camera case.
Princess Cruises wouldn’t give them my phone number or address
but they called us and told us to call them.
They mailed it to us free of charge.
My favorite:
Late at night when I was on the computer after we got home from SunRiver,
I noticed in horror that the diamond was missing from my ring.
We had been working in the yard there so it could be among all those rocks
or in the garbage can with the trimmings.
It could be in the house.
It could be in the swimming pool.
It could be in the swim gloves.
Jerry went over and carefully went through all the swim gloves.
They checked the drain on the swimming pool.
I could have lost it riding my bike.
We stopped four times on the way home delivering Christmas gifts.
It could be at any of those stops.
We searched the vacuum cleaner and looked for that tiny thing incessantly.
We finally bought an imitation called Moissanite.
In fact, we bought two because we didn’t like the first one.
We had it set in my ring. Fine.
And then one day in February,
I found that diamond on the shag rug in front of the fridge right here in Fruit Heights.
I had cleaned the fridge that day.
I guess it came out when I put the vegetables in from St. George.
Why it didn’t get thrown out with the cleaning water?
Why I saw it in that shag rug
I know not.
I haven’t worn my ring since;
and we never got the real diamond set in the ring.
It’s in the strong box in the closet.
Remember that when I die.
Now I’m confused.
Do I have a gift
or am I just plain lucky?
The Complete Diamond Story
Once Again:
On December 13, 2004, we arrived home from St. George. Because it
was Christmastime, we stopped to deliver gifts along the way. First, to
Keenan’s in Cedar City, then Lynn’s in Nephi; Ron’s in Spanish Fork; and
finally Karen’s in Murray. We arrived home just before 10 PM.
Lollygagging at the computer at 1:30 AM, I happened to notice that the large
diamond was missing from my wedding ring. Drats! I couldn't believe
it. I thought I wasn't seeing things.
Amy is so pragmatic. “It’s gone. Get over it. You would
never find it even if you knew when you lost it.”
Me, I’m thinking: “Someone will find it. I know they
will. It will be a marvelous miracle. I look in the backseat of the
car at 2 AM. I call Jerry at 7 AM to have him go check all the swim
gloves at the Community Center in Sunriver. I know it’s going to pop up
in some unexpected place. I notify everyone whose house we visited
yesterday. I wish I could retrace my bike route. It’s going to show
up. I know it!”
“It’s gone. Get over it.”
I know I don’t want a new diamond. Too much responsibility.
But my friend, Joyce, at the gym remembers this man-made diamond she heard
about on Channel 2 News. DeRay looks it up on the Internet and ends up
ordering a Russian Star gemstone for $100. When it comes, he drops it off
at the Jeweler without telling him it’s not a real diamond. Even before
he gets home, the jeweler calls and says he won’t put it in the setting because
it’s not a real diamond. He wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t tested it in
his machine. DeRay goes to another jeweler and buys a MoissaniteBorn
from A Star--More Brilliance---More FireMore Compliments. $400 including
having it set in my ring. I love it. It sparkles. I decide
not to wear it at night or in swimming. I’m going to take good care of it
this time. For Valentine’s, he has the Russian Star gemstone made into a
necklace for me.
On Saturday, February 26, 2005, 2½ months later, mind you, I clean the
fridge. I struggled to get all the drawers out and back in. After I
had put everything back and closed the fridge door, there on the rug 3” or 4”
out from the fridge lay a diamond. I picked it up and examined it in
utter disbelief. Without saying a word to Amy, I ran upstairs to check my
ring to see if the new Moissanite diamond had fallen out; I check to make sure
the gemstone is still in my necklace. then I went into the computer room where
DeRay was perched, and said, “You are never going to believe this!”
I was right! I expected to find it and I did! Of course, I
had given up. Brent sided with Amy when she said, “It’s gone. Get
over it. You would never find it even if you knew when you lost
it.”: “She's right, too,” Brent wrote, “You could only find it by not
knowing where to look for it and then not looking for it. Isn't that the
way life works?”
You can go mad looking for something so small when you don’t know when or
where you lost it.
It wasn't in the pool in St. George.
It wasn’t in anyone else’s house or driveway.
It wasn't in the rocks in the backyard where we had been working and
where I searched for hours with a flashlight.
It wasn't in my gloves.
It wasn't along the streets where I rode my bike.
It wasn't in the backseat of the car where I have looked a jillion times.
It wasn't in the vacuum in St. George or here.
It wasn't in the lining of my purse (where Raine found her diamond).
It wasn't in the mop rag (where my visiting teacher’s mother found her
diamond four months later when she was working school lunch).
It wasn’t in the parking lot at the gym (when Pete found Helen’s
diamond).
I found my diamond where and when I least expected.
When I ran down to show it to Amy, I dropped it and it took us 20 minutes
to find it even when we knew where I dropped it. It melted right into the
Berber carpet and fell into a groove by the leg of the Lazyboy recliner.
Ed said he didn’t want to hear about it when I shared the happy news with
him. Was it in the fridge these 2-1/2 months? Why didn’t it get
picked up with the other particles and put down the drain? It couldn’t
have been in the rug all that time. The rugs were one of the first things
I checked? Amy says there is no need to speculate. I will never
know. I do consider it a miracle of significant magnitude.
I wish I had found it $500 ago. At least we didn’t spend $3,000.
Now that I have found
my diamond, we don’t know what to do with it.
It would cost $65 to have it replaced with the one DeRay had put in when
we “gave it up” and thought we would never find it. I really love the one that is in. It’s sparkly, even though it’s not a real
diamond. “Maybe we can sell the diamond
and take a trip around the world,” I suggest to DeRay. “I’m afraid you can sell a diamond for about
half of what you would have to pay for a new one,” he reasons. We’ll put it in the strong box while we think
about it. The wonder of finding it is
not diminished.
Anyone can find a
diamond in her purse, in a mop rag, or in the parking lot; if ever one were to
find it those are logical places to look.
A diamond concealed in the fridge appearing on the rug in the middle of
the kitchen floor after 2½ months is enormously mystifying. The Patron Saint of Lost and Found is cunning
as a fox.
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