How I Lost My Wedding Ring (A Cautionary Tale)

When my oldest son was three or four years old we took a trip to Ohiopyle State Park in western Pennsylvania. My parents came along, and the five of us were going to camp out, visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house, and generally explore. I had another reason for going there. I had read about the natural waterslide in Meadow Run where it flows into the Youghiogheny River. To me, that was irresistible. Our first day at the park, we set up camp and headed down to Meadow Run. We parked the van and walked down to the slide. Slide is probably an overstatement. It is really one long channel cut through the bedrock that the water flows over. On this particular day the water was really ripping. It had been raining the day before and the current looked too powerful to risk it. So, we all went down below to where the water was calmer, threw a life jacket on Cullen, and swam for about an hour. When we were ready to head back to camp, we hiked back past the slide, and I saw them. Some local kids were going down the slide. I didn’t think that anyone was going to do it, but now that these kids were doing it, I was game. Walking up next the rushing water with a grin on my face, I handed my shirt to my wife and stepped in. I sat down in the water and scooted my posterior into the main channel of flowing water. What happened next is what I would describe as the most fun you will have while trying not to drown. The rushing water took me about the length of a football field in about ten seconds and spit me out into a pool of slightly slower flowing water. I swam to the edge so I wouldn’t get pushed over the rocks at the other end of the pool. My first thought was, we need to get this on video. Everyone was ready to go back to camp anyway, and that’s where the camera was, so I convinced my wife that we needed to get the camera and come back. When we got back, I enthusiastically hopped back in the water and survived another trip down the slide, all captured on glorious video. When I got out of the water, I quickly realized that something was missing. Now, cold water causes things to shrink.  My wedding ring was gone. I was excited and bummed at the same time. When I got back to where my wife was standing with the camera, I said, “Did you get it on video?”

Moral of the story. If you want your wife to talk to you again on a day like this, don’t lead with, “Did you get it on video?”