The weekend...
May 29, 2002
First the basics - Matt and I celebrated our first anniversary Sunday. We went camping at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in Gary, IN. We had a lot of fun, did dinner in Chinatown, Chicago, Sunday night, went hiking on the dunes and in the marsh, and just generally had fun.
The most entertaining part of the weekend (in retrospect!) came just before we headed to Chicago for dinner. My wedding ring, as it happens, is about a quarter-size too big, and can't be resized. This is usually not a problem, but can become one if my hands are wet and I'm not really thinking, which was the case when I was coming out of the camp bathhouse, shaking my hands to dry them. My ring flew off my finger and rolled across the deck outside the women's restroom. It rolled tantalizingly across about 15 cracks between the boards making up the deck, and I chased crazily after, grabbing at it, before it slowed down and fell between two of the cracks.
I was terribly upset. (It's ironic that this happened right after reading Jordan's post on Jaime's bad luck with her rings.) I called Matt out of the bathroom and went to the car to look for a flashlight. I saw the ring at first, but trying to reach it, knocked it under one of the boards. We didn't have a flashlight in the car, so I asked to borrow one from one of the groups of campers nearby. They came to see what had happened, and one guy there happened to have a cordless drill on him. I have no idea why. I had thought about going home to get my own, but it would have taken about 2 hours, and by that time it would have been dark. So to make the rest of this long story somewhat shorter, Terry brought his drill over, took out the offending board from the deck, and allowed me to retrieve my ring, while his friend (whose name I think was Mike) regaled us with stories of his recent divorce, congratulations on our anniversary, and observations that their presence, with the drill, was obviously the work of Providence.
It was a very happy moment to retrieve the ring, and when I put it on and walked back past their campsite (where there were about 12 people all emotionally involved in our adventure) with my hand on Matt's elbow, I was decidedly reminded of the recessional of our wedding... in a burlesque! However, I am sincerely thankful to these kind people and glad they were present and so helpful, and I am not at all displeased that the end result was an adventure so ridiculous. :)