So anyway, a couple weeks ago I headed out to Montauk with the family to spend a few days vacation style. Parents, my gff (girlfriend,fiance), bro wife and kids all that. Celebrate Mom’s bday. Parents wedding anniversary. All that..

We all got rooms at this motel-y place, checked in and immediately headed to this place called Gosman’s Dock to get steamers or whatever. Within ten minutes of being there my gff points to her finger and is like, ‘Ummm….!!!’

Her engagement ring diamond was gone. Not the ring. Just the stone. It fell out. The setting was empty. The ring looked like it had been robbed. It had been resized recently and apparently the jeweler sucked.

I look at the ground and I see we’re standing in an ocean of gravel and pebbles. Like a block long. I was like, ‘Holy frucking fruck!’ (This ring btw is a total family ring. Heirloom passed down way back all the way back to Poland. So it’s got big sentimental value and all that. I was totally like, ‘Oh friggin no…’)

We started looking on the ground. Picking up little pieces of glass searching for a friggin diamond. I didn’t know what to do. It’s not like this was a hunking J.Lo diamond you can trip over. It’s small compared to gravel stones. Vacation had just started an hour ago. It was my Mom’s actual birthday day. The gff was super devastated. I wondered if we should even bother saying anything at all…

But then of course the family noticed we had wandered away from lunch to walk in circles staring at the ground like malfunctioning robots. They came over and we told them what happened and the whole family joined in to look. Random nice strangers joined in too\. It must have been a weird scene for anyone coming to the area. Because all they’d see are random people walking around in serpentine patterns staring at the ground.

We looked everywhere. Around the car. Under stuff. In the car seats. By the garbage. Bathroom sink. No diamond. It was impossible. It was gone. I felt like we were being ridiculous. Even if we knew exactly where it was it would be hard to find. Plus, we didn’t even know when it fell out in the first place.

So we got in the car (checking between the seats and everywhere) and drove back to the motel in a weird silence. I’m not a big materialistic guy and stuff is just stuff– but this was kind of a big deal. Not only because it was a family ring from the old country. But because it felt like a loss. It was our special ring. I kept myself from wondering — if it was a sign?

Anyway, we get back to the motel parking lot and start looking around on the ground for the hell of it. That parking lot was also gravel. It seemed like we were just looking based on principle. Not actually thinking it would turn up. It sucked. This little stone was going to rain all over our vacation. And at the wedding the new ring would be the ‘replacement’ ring. New from some store. Not from family. It was a bummer.

Then I see my dad stoop down in this motel parking lot and pop up with something. My mom said, ‘It’s a piece of glass…’ But he looks at it and shows it to the gff. It was the friggin diamond! Plucked from the rubble of pebbles and blacktop. Everyone flipping freaked out. It really was kind of stunning. Just like that? Found? I much more comfortably wondering if this was a sign.

The kids were like going nuts and stuff and their Grandpa was a total hero. Saved the day! And the vacation!

I promptly put a stop to all that celebrating by piling all the kids in the rental car to get some ice cream and backing out of the parking space straight into a high bumper of a pickup truck smashing out the side panel and bumper. But that’s another story. For another day…

Actually, it’s not really another story. That’s pretty much the story there with that one…

ok bye!
tOdd

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