Saturday June 19
It started out like any other day. The kids woke at the crack of dawn. I felt miserable and wanted to stay in bed all day. Sean was my hero and let me sleep a little longer.
At breakfast I suddenly realized I’d left my wedding rings in the bathroom. The Shared Bathroom. I ran up stairs and someone was in there, so I told Sean who said he’d check as soon as they were out. I felt sick to my stomach as I went through different scenarios. But I wouldn’t let myself believe that I was gonna lose my rings…
Sean came down and told me, “They are not there.”
I ran upstairs and checked. We asked the lady staying in the next room, who said she had seen them but left them there. Sean then asked her to talk to the man (he turned out to be her husband) who had left the bathroom just before Sean had checked it. The man was pretty angry and said, “I didn’t see any rings. I didn’t take them.” Meanwhile, I checked our room again, to make sure they weren’t in there. Sean was positive that this man had taken the rings, because of his demeanor when he left the bathroom. I checked the bathroom again, this time with the man’s wife, who kept telling me I was foolish for leaving them in there (please tell me something I don’t know!!). I checked under every object, behind every nook and cranny. Nothing.
This large family was getting ready to depart the Home Stay, and my rings were still gone. KD stepped in to help us, and I also suggested that we call the police before the family left. This made the accused man very angry. He was getting in Sean’s face, accusing Sean of prejudice and lying. Actually, I thought Sean was very polite, calling the guy ‘sir’, and stating that the rings don’t hold high monetary value, but the sentimental value is very high, making them irreplaceable.
While I was distracted with the kids (trying hard to keep them out of the middle of this hostile situation), the man went back into the house, then came back down stairs and said to Sean, “You keep pointing the finger at me. But I bet if you go up stairs and look you will find the rings in there.” So, I went up stairs to the bathroom with KD, and there on the floor, under the scrubbing brush that I had picked up less than 5 minutes before, were both my rings. WHAT A RELIEF!!
I came back down stairs and just said, “Thank you to who ever returned the rings. It’s funny. They were under a brush up there, but I just checked under that brush five minutes ago! So, thanks!” The Wife hugged me and said, “I’m so glad we got it all worked out.” So weird.
The guy got in Sean’s face again, yelling at him and practically shoving his finger up Sean’s nose, going on about accusing innocent people. Then the family left. Poor Sean was shaking and exhausted. He ‘debriefed’ with KD for a few minutes about the way things went down, and if he’d gone about it the right way or not. In Thailand, we would have been less direct, less confrontational. So Sean needed to know. KD confirmed that Sean handled it well, and that if we’d been too ‘Thai’ in our approach, we probably wouldn’t have gotten the rings back. I was just praising God that my stupidity and absentmindedness hadn’t caused us to lose such precious objects.
We went back to packing up our stuff, and decided that our trip to Tanjong Bungha and Dalat Int’l School (where Sean graduated high school) was out of the question. But the adventure doesn’t stop there.
We had booked a taxi for 2:30pm, to take us to the airport. At 2:45pm he wasn’t there, so he had KD call him. He’s on his way. I was still in my zombie like state, and so the events of the day weren’t affecting me the way they affected Sean. I just kept saying, “He’ll be here. Don’t worry. We’ve got time”. At 3pm, Sean was in full panic mode. Wait a minute, I’m usually the one in panic mode when it comes to catching planes on time, and right now I couldn’t care less. At 3:11pm I was ready to beg KD to take us to the airport, when finally he offered. In peak hour traffic, we made it to the airport by 4pm. Flight is at 5pm. Let’s go people! Samantha had fallen asleep in the car, which made our lives so much easier as we raced through checkin, immigration, security and to the very last gate in the terminal (it’s always the way, isn’t it!).
Whew! Seats 8A,B,C. Miss Three still sleeping (she slept the whole flight in my arms). Master One playing happily with Daddy and charming the passengers and stewardesses with his Cuteness. We met our Thai friend, Sia, on the flight – she was sitting in row 7, but I didn’t get to chat, cause I was sandwiched in 8A with Samantha. We had a 3 hour wait in Bangkok for our Chiang Mai flight, where poor Sean proceeded to completely ‘crash’ from his super stressful day. I took the kids for a walk around the terminal, and Samantha played hide and seek in the shops, and even found some toys to play with. Samantha was playing with stuffed toys like Stitch and Goofy, while Timothy discovered the joys of Matchbox cars. I even saw a Delorean (from Back to the Future) that I almost bought to cheer up Sean.
After an 30 minute nap, Sean was almost his old self. We met a family in the terminal, and he chatted with them while I ran around with Samantha, hoping she’d drop on the plane again. She didn’t. But we got the red carpet treatment from Air Asia: a ride in the van across the tarmac with 3 monks and the family we’d been talking with. We were the first to board the plane (after the monks) and once we were in the air, Samantha and Timothy got to play with the Stewardesses in the back of the plane.
Arriving home at 10:30pm, we put Master One to bed immediately, while Miss Three bounced off the walls for a while retelling her adventures on the Dinosaur Train and with the triceratops family, at the Butterfly Pharmacy, the fun day at the beach and pool with her new friends, and then flying high up in the sky to go to Thailand and home.
I keep looking at my wedding rings on my ring finger, thankful that they are still intact and in my possession. It’s amazing how the potential loss of an object can be so earth shattering.
Recent Comments