Shakespeare and the Ill-Fated Ring

We were in Cedar City, Utah this weekend.  I was attending a Continuing Education class on Saturday and had some tickets to watch a couple of plays at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. We watched Noises Off (hi-larious!) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (extremely well-played).  They've got some great deals on tickets going on right now if you've got a chance to go!

As we headed out, we prayed that we wouldn't have any crazy adventures like last year when we went to Cedar City or like the last time we ended up in Beaver for a few hours!

And everything--the plays, our hotel stay, the CE, a little shopping--was going well.  As you can see, we were having fun in the gift shop checking out all the Shakespearean-esque items to buy.

He's such a princess, isn't he?

It's like having a My Little Pony carry-all!

Guess who? And no, it's not me--I can't grow a beard like that.

It took everything in my power to keep my head up--the helmet was HEAVY!

Well, at least things were going well until Saturday afternoon during the intermission at A Midsummer Night's Dream.

That's when Lee looked down and discovered that his wedding ring was gone.

Oh great.

I wasn't there when Lee lost his ring the first time, but I have an inkling of what it was like--Lee describes it as a chasm opening up and swallowing up all happiness.  I started having flashbacks of when he lost his wedding ring the first time. Things weren't looking good for our super heroes.

If you need a reminder of what the ill-fated ring looks like!

We both frantically searched the area where we sat before the lights went down again, and I think that both of us were ticking down the time till the play finished so we could get on our hands and knees to look more closely.

I don't remember A Midsummer's Night Dream being that long before.

When it finally finished, we let everyone leave and then started crawling around on the floor.

Nothing. Nada. No ring.

We then decided to split up.  I headed to the gift shop where we were earlier and Lee tracked down the Lost and Found.

No luck at either place.  Bummer.

We then decided to retrace our steps and call all the places we'd been since arriving in Cedar on Friday night.  We had already ruled out the theaters and the gift shop, so we started by calling the restaurant we had lunch at and the store we were in that afternoon.

"No, we haven't seen it, but would you like us to take your name and number and we can call you if it does show up?"

Sure...I guess.

Lee then got on the phone with the hotel and this is how it went:

"We stayed at your hotel last night and I lost my wedding ring and I'm wondering if a ring was turned in."

Pause.

"It's a black ring with 3 lime green lines and an inscription on the inside."

Pause.

"Oh, good--we'll be by to come pick it up.  Thank you!"

I breathe a sigh of relief as Lee hangs up.  He then says to me that he has some good news and some bad news.  Uh-oh. 

The good news is that they found the ring in the laundry.

The bad news is that there is not very much green left on the ring, like it had "broken off or something."

Come again?

We headed to the hotel and met up with the super nice front desk girl, Shaleia, who presented Lee with his ring.

Shaleia from America's Best Value Inn and Lee's ring

And she was right--there is hardly any green left on the ring.

There are only 2 little spots of green left on Lee's ring

The lime green is an epoxy inlay and probably was eaten away by all the chemicals in the laundry or during cleaning.

Lee says it's his dark ring now and because of this change, he is going to become meaner...

And scarier...

He doesn't really look meaner or scarier.  He looks a little like a metalic walrus to me.

I'm not so sure about that.  I think he was just relieved to find his wedding ring.

Phew!  We found the ring!  And we're still married!

So, we've now got to have Lee's lime green inlays redone.  I'm glad that's the only thing we need to replace!