As disasters go, this one wasn't

As disasters go, this one was short-lived and so it hardly qualifies as a real disaster. But for a few minutes there, I was devastated. Sick. Disappointed in myself. Definitely not wanting to confess to the Captain.

I was driving downtown. Heading, in fact, straight to the Captain. We were going to leave my car at a Midas shop to get my oil changed and a tail light fixed. The tail light thing seems trivial but it’s really hard to access and well worth the cost of having folks with fancy tools access it.

I was turning a corner when I noticed it. Right there on my finger where my engagement/wedding diamond used to live. It was a like a tooth yanked out of your mouth. The hole was enormous. Far bigger than the diamond’s actual proportions.

Gone. Missing. Disparu as the French say.

I almost wrecked my car. I’m certain I slowed down. I should apologize to anyone who drives around me on a normal day, but for this one, I’m extra sincere.  It’s only about 20 minutes to downtown but it seemed like one of those stop-action productions where I was driving through mud or something.

For the life of me, I can’t imagine when or where the diamond escaped my hand.

I got to Midas before Jeff as he’d dropped Ali off at school.  The very sweet guy at the counter gave me a flashlight so I could try to track down the gem.

He wasn’t concerned at all. He reminded me that Valentine’s Day was coming and it would be good reason for Jeff to go shopping. Right. Easy for him to be cavalier about the thing. He wasn’t there nearly 20 years ago now when Jeff and I met Mr. Goodman and talked and talked and talked about diamonds and rings and romance.

We learned a lot about Mr. Goodman, whose shop is now part of The Conrad Hotel. For me that corner will always belong to the Goodmans. He was a sweet, sweet man who talked about his wife of 50+ years like they were still newlyweds. When Jeff got down to business re: The Ring, I fled to the mall.  I learned later that they conspired to give me a bigger rock than I’d expected.

And now that rock was not among the detritus on my Mustang’s floor. It’s not anywhere in my house from what I can gather, either. We’ve found a lot of stuff. But not that.

Back at Midas, I was cutting a hole in my bottom lip, fretting about my irresponsibility and going through the various scenarios when the ring could have been damaged to the point that the stone was released.

The Captain was great. Reminded me that we had insurance and that this is exactly what it’s for.

That helped wipe a bit of the pain, but here’s where the disaster gets pretty much erased.

Sitting in Jeff’s Subaru, I took a picture of my mangled ring. Then, we called Sam. Sam Goldstein is our Farmer’s Insurance agent. Has been for years. He’s a Libertarian, which is a lot of fun when we meet to discuss serious things like insurance.  You should be so lucky to have Sam in your contact list.

We sent Sam the photo. Sam called Kylie Renberger, an appraiser. She called Replacement Services and before noon, Tawnya Saunders was calling me, asking when did I want my stand-in stone.

Cost to me:  My morning angst and lingering unhappiness about losing Mr. Goodman’s stone.

Tawnya got the specs for my original diamond and FedXed me one to consider. We did some research and found it better than the one we started with on some key quality measures. We return FedXed that stone and my mangled ring. It’ll be fixed, the stone replaced and secured and sent back to me.

How amazing is that? Lesson here for you: If you are dragging your feet on getting your jewelry appraised and put on a rider on your homeowner’s insurance policy, stop it right now. Lynda Ruble, I’m talking to you. And your mom and Amy, too. 

 

You just never know when something might happen to it. If you need a good agent, I’ll introduce you to Sam.