I Used to Have Money One Time

I have not always had to live pay check to paycheck watching every single penny that came in and out of my hands.  Don't get me wrong, I have never been wealthy, but I had enough money coming in that I could have the latest and greatest technological doohickey and to buy nice presents for the family.  One year for our anniversary, I bought my wife a custom made anniversary band that contained alternating diamonds and sapphires encircling the entire band.  I mention that particular ring for a very specific reason because at some point it became lost, never to be seen again.

We have no proof that the following events are related, but we have our suspicions.  One day, we were sitting around the house and had some laundry going in the basement.  Suddenly, I smelled something burning and opened the door to go down to the basement and was greeted by massive amounts of smoke.  I rushed the wife and son out the door and called the fire department.  Somehow, the exhaust hose of our dryer had come off of the back of the dryer and there was a build up of dryer lint that had build up behind the dryer that ignited.

Thankfully, we all made it out with no problem and there was no major damage.  The dryer, of course was toast, along with the clothes in the dryer.  The house itself, suffered no structural damage, just a couple of burn marks on a couple of beams in the unfinished part of our laundry room.  The fire burned itself out very quickly and produced a lot of smoke.  Aside from needing a new washer and dryer, we had to have a professional cleaning service clean our ducts to get rid of the smoke damage.  That is where the mystery of the missing ring begins.

It was right after the cleaning service came through the house that my wife discovered that the ring was missing.  She had left the ring in a jewelry box on top of her dresser.  We tried to stay with the crew as they were cleaning, especially in any place where we had some valuables.  Obviously, we didn't see anybody take anything, nor would we have expected it from a company that has a very positive reputation.  It is times like this that make me regret that we did not have some place to store our valuables, like a personal safe like the ones from Safes AtoZ.

Once we discovered the ring was missing, we called the service, and of course they knew nothing of it.  We called our insurance company to see if we could file a claim for the ring.  They told us that we would have to file a police report.  We ended up not filing a police report because we had no evidence that somebody had taken it rather than it just being lost as nothing else was missing.  Looking back, we probably should have at least file a report with the police.  Another lesson learned.