pron
I was once driving along a quiet country lane when I spotted a video tape just lying in the middle of the road. I stopped and rescued it and got home to find that it contained some quality Dutch porn.

From that day onwards I always looked out for discarded video tapes whenever I was driving anywhere.

A few months later, another discarded video tape, no label, must be porn, result! Back at home, put it into the video and... fucking Dances With Wolves. Even fast forwarded through the whole tape looking for the porn that must be hidden on there somewhere. Nothing.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 11:29, 3 replies)

In my youth
If I saw a fag packet on the ground, I would tread on it so that I could ascertain whether it was empty or not. Using this method, I once found a pack of ten with five cigs remaining, rizlas and a small piece of hash, a session in a box.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 11:16, Reply)

Not just trying to make up for missing the last few QOTW, honest
I work part-time in a video store in an almost-posh part of town, where people have important jobs, huge paypackets and trendy apartments. Most of them are actually quite decent and are fine if you herrang them about late fees, though a few tightwads will argue over every red cent. A real estate agent and his wife are buggers for having a strop whenever I ask them to pay a $1 fee for a movie that was 3 days late, because they don't think it's fair to pay late fees for weekly hires, even though we don't start charging fees until day 3, which I think is pretty fair.

One time when the man of this horrible pair had just thrown a dollar coin at me in disgust ("Have your bloody dollar then!") and stormed out leaving only aggressive promises to complain to my boss in his wake, I noticed that he'd left behind his expensive looking pair of RayBans.

I think they suit me quite nicely.

Also found one of the coveted "HELL TOKE" lighters at work. Now, in case you're not a stoner who lives in the South Island of New Zealand, there is a Shell station in a town called Stoke, which happens to be on 666 on Whatever Street (I think it's Main North Road). This Shell sells lighters that say the address, so all you have to do is scratch off the 'S' and you have a lighter that says, in big, bold letters, "HELL TOKE, 666 MAIN NORTH ROAD, NELSON". Someone who'd probably just come back from a roadtrip left it behind, so I snaked it. The guy rung up a bit later and asked if I'd seen it. I told him someone must've got it.

My two favourites involve found money, though neither happened at the store. Firstly, there was the time my mate Kieran got excited when he found a $1 coin on the footpath. While he was doing a wee dance, I bent down and picked up the $5 note next to it.

The other one happened to my other mate Sam when we were doing mushrooms for the first time. We got the hungers but I had bugger all cash and he had none. Good thing Sam found a fiver in the gutter.

Might seem small in retrospect, but at the time they were the best things I'd ever found.

(Apologies for length)
(ElGranto, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 11:13, 1 reply)

A mates mom's porn
The first and only time I went to Splashy fen, which is a semi-crappy outdoor music festival in the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa (for the Northern people), I hitched a lift with a mates parents. It is usually on Easter weekend and because I am always involved with Church Choirs etc I stayed for that.
They are a free spirited pair, almost bordering on hippies but cooler and are also involved with the church activities.

It was Hank and I who caught the ride. MR & Mrs T (as I shall name them) were going up to meet their kids at the festival so we just tagged along.
They drove us up in the back of a pickup, stacked with mattresses. it was very comfortable and we got loads of sleep on the way.
Coming back, I was catching a few Z's and my hand had found its way into a crevice between the mattresses. When I woke up I felt something odd touching my fingers so I pulled it out to find a crisp new Hustler magazine.
"Awesome,"I thought,"Something to 'read'"

Over the next 3 hours I flipped though it, had a perv at the girl-on-girl action, the anal dildo act, the solo posing. I read the articles and the dodgy cartoons then passed it to Hank who read it too. then we stuck it back in the gap where we found it.

Upon being dropped off I figured I would do the right thing to protect the dignity of fine literature so I pulled the mag out and tossed it into the cabin at my mates, church going Hippie parents saying ,"Here's your mag, you dont want it to get damaged back there."

I got such a horrified look from Mrs T. I just waved goodbye and left on my merry way to have a solid wank.

turns out it wasn't theirs after all. Mrs T had thought it was Mr T's and read him the riot act for having pornography in the house. The trouble then went onto T junior. Turns out one of his other, nutcase mates was reading this newly bought Hustler, when he was disturbed. He stashed it in the pick-up and forgot about it. That was when I found it.

And all the itme I assumed that Mr and Mrs T were just new-age type who were into that sort of thing...

Come to think of it, it would be rather disgusting if they were. I dont want to picture Mrs T with a dildo in her bum.
(Bluffboy South Africa! World Champions!!!, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 10:35, 2 replies)

Getting away from it all.
I had a lot of troubles and decided one day to get away from it all and go down to the river and wash away my troubles.
The tax man was on my ass and the only way he was going to catch me this time was to get his shoes wet.
I held my head up and looked up to the sun and knew that he couldn't find me in my little haven, this was a place where I didn't have to run any more.
Besides, I was confident that he couldn't because I'd given a false adress.
It was then that I thought if anyone was tired and weary, they should come and find this little haven and make their own bid for freedom.
They'd be sure to find themselves the good life and peace of mind here.

So anyway.

I've.

Found.

My.

Freedom.

Da-de-da-dn de-de-dee
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 10:28, 2 replies)

I found..
..one of my bollocks to be a completely different size to the other one. The scene: 15 years old and full of unworldly paranoia. At the time i also kept my mobile phone in my hip pocket too, and being "strange new radioactive potential devices", I immediately shat a brick. The thought of a radioactive mutated lump of bollock cancer at the ripe age of 15 did not bode well for me. Co-incidently, it also didnt bode well with the GP i visited, who was straining to keep a straight face after hearing the story. Looking back, i can laugh, but nothing beats that simplistic fear of freaky bollocks you get when your a teenager.

Length? 1x4cm, and 1x3cm approx.
(Overdrive fucking loves you!, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 10:04, 2 replies)

Trog City
.
I used to share a flat in Trog City with a lovely bloke who I worked with. I was there Monday to Thursday and then back home for the weekend. One of the reasons we got on so well was that he was rarely home - he was always at his girlfriends leaving me to play with his extensive collection of geeky toys.

So one night, after a bottle of wine and some computer games, I stumbled up the stairs to get my head down. As I was approaching the top of the stairs I saw something right at my eye level.

A snake.

A fucking big snake. In the middle of winter in Trog city.

We stared at each other as I pulled out my mobile and dialled Seans number.

"Sean? I've just found a fucking big snake at the top of the stairs..."

"What?" he said incredulously "It must be Snookums - I lost him 8 months ago...."

So a short time later two Goths turned up and took the snake home. They liked to watch it eat things...

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 9:59, 2 replies)

A cat.
Reading through last weeks answers reminded me of a recent finding made by my grandmother.

She’s a major dog person. Schnauzers, especially. Over the course of my lifetime she’s had four of them. She treats her dogs better than she treated my mother in her youth. She was always adamant that cats were evil and as such should be killed, going so far as to throw things at them when they entered her yard; the dogs didn’t care less.

One day, she found a cat sitting on her back veranda, in a rather comfortable chair I remember sitting on as a child. It’s a rather large grey tabby. It came free from collar or that angry temperament that seemingly all stray cats bring into all aspects of their being. For some reason that nobody has been able to ascertain, she decided to feed it.

Finding it to be a less excitable/blind companion than the last of her dogs, she let it into the house. Eventually she grew so attached to it that she bought it a collar, gave it a name and considered it her own.

Now, this is not all that exciting. Quite a lot of people adopt cats that they begin feeding. The part that was worrying was that she neglected to tell anyone. Including her husband.

One day my sister and I visited for dinner. We’re waiting for the roast to finish cooking when a grey fuzzy thing comes sauntering in from the kitchen. “Erm…Nan, there’s a cat in your house.”

We later found out that it used to be a neighbour’s. The neighbour decided one day to move to France. Just took off without the cat. Stupid bastards.
( Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 9:14, Reply)

I found
a girlfriend, but then I lost her.

Um. This is probably slightly futile, and might seem a bit odd, but I'm trying to find her again. Her name's Julie Vella. I've put an ad up here.

I bet at least some of the people I knew then are b3tans.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 6:41, 10 replies)

Tools
When I was younger I was walking with a mate of mine in a storm water drain (very safe). We passed under a bridge and I noticed a bit of plastic hanging where the bridge met the edge of the drain.

We climb up to investigate and find a large stash of tools in a toolbox hidden in a large hole in the concrete. We figured they were stolen. But took them home anyway.

THE BEST BIT: After excavating them, we also found underneath a massive stash of porn.

Dad got the tools, I got the boobies. AWESOME.
(Slatts If you cant remember it didnt happen, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 5:45, Reply)

I'm interpreting this question abstractly.
I found a late-period Picasso in a hedge.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 2:28, 3 replies)

If you have two beroccas*
then take a pee in a public toilet where they use those UV lights to deter junkies, it looks like you've got a laser shooting out your knob.


*Aussie multi vitamin** fizzy things, good for a hangover.

** That's vittamin to you UK people.
( difficultchild, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 2:03, 18 replies)

A friend of mine
found a bag of super-strength cannabis in Tescos loo. She did the decent thing of course: over the next few weeks the stash was wrapped in paper and incinerated.
( eXOBeX, Tue 11 Nov 2008, 1:59, 1 reply)

Fags
I found a carton of 200 cigarettes left in a trolley in Waitrose Car Park yesterday afternoon.

I was in the car to leave, saw them, jumped out and grabbed them. Then spent a moment to decide what I'd do with them.

I gave up the fags about 10 years ago, one of my proudest achievements, so they're no good to me.

I suppose I could give them to a friend, or family member...but they've all given up as well, I couldn't think of a single person.

I could sell them to someone at work, but I earn enough that 30-40 quid I'd get just isn't worth the bother (how much are fags now days?)

So I took them back in the shop and left them at the customer service counter. I felt a bit miserable really. Yearning for my skint smoke filled youth I guess, when such a find would have felt like Christmas, and I'd have rushed home holding them up in triumph as Iwalked through the door.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 10 Nov 2008, 23:17, 2 replies)

The Mason's Apron
oooh - sounds like a double entendre or maybe a Viz annual doesn't it?

It's not though, I saw a briefcase in a hedge once, after retieveing it I found it contained a Mason's sash/apron thing and a lot of documents that went through the whole 'induction' process of a new Mason.

I had a good read and phoned a number that was in there. Don't know if it was the Mason in question who turned up to collect it or one of his little wizards but he gave me a crisp £20.00 note for my troubles - w00t!

Always wanted to try the handshake one day but never got the courage up. If I did it wrong they'd know and come for me in the night or something!
(Vauxhall Burgundy, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 22:51, 2 replies)

just now
walking back from the chinese

50€ in the street.
(bamboozled Can hear you getting fatter, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 22:35, Reply)

Grumblemags...
..I'd suggest the best pornography is that which you happen upon by chance; in an underpass in Hatfield, circa 2000, I found a copy of Mayfair from 1986 in pristine condition. Being a child of the 1980's this excited me for about 2 minutes, but then I realised just how crappy 1980's porn is in retrospect. Besides, I just read the stories.
(mcnelson, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 22:26, 2 replies)

I've found that many people would rather interpret the QOTW abstractly
than actually bother thinking of an answer.
( Digeridude Lord Wellington's Beef Trapeze, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 22:19, Reply)

Lost...
A transit van.
£50,000 in crisp and not so crisp notes and loose change.
A mattress.
Several bags of weed and wraps of speed.
A guitar.
Numerous cans of beer and miscellaneous other booze.
The entire back catalogue of Fiesta, Razzle and Men Only.
A pile of VHS tapes (contents suspected to be pornographic).
One unexploded bomb.
A menagerie of puppies and kitties.
The musical score to the Mikado, by WS Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.

I just wondered if any B3tan had seen these items lying around.
(grandmaswhiskers, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 21:30, 1 reply)

Postman Plod
When I was a postie some years back I found a couple of brand new grumble mags posted in a postbox. Fiesta and Escort if memory serves.

Another time whilst in my car I drove over another bongo mag; a copy of Skinny & Wriggly. It was fine once I'd brushed off the dirt.

It's not like I go searching for these things, honest.
( Ultimate Cakes & Sweets Why,what are you planning to do - photosynthesize?, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 20:37, 2 replies)

I know I'm a sad twat but this is what I didn't or didn't find...
A couple of weeks back I went on a quest to find out whether Face Book represented the end of humanity, or whether it just posed a bit of harmless fun.

This is what I found out…….


It’s 2008 and we are smack bang in the middle of the so called ‘Space Age.’ An age where my 53 year old mother knows how to internet bank, order food online and buy expensive shoes on Ebay. We have iPods which can store 20’000 songs, we have mobile phones the size of cigarette lighters and every street corner has a surveillance camera plonked on it to ensure were not all going round brutally murdering and raping each other. Let’s face it, whether we like it or not, modern day technology is continuing to accelerate at frightening pace.

Don’t get me wrong, I love technology and all the niceties it brings to my busy life style. I can’t imagine life without mobile phones, an XBOX 360 or my pearly white Apple Mac. Like all good things though, such rapid growth will inevitably breed consequence, a bit like Magners cider, it was great when it first came out and it was reasonably priced, but then people started guzzling it like greedy animals until you literally have to remortgage your house to get pissed off it. Anyway, one pit fall in the surge of technological advances has to be social networking web sites such as Myspace and Facebook. At first I thought these said sites were a bit of fun. You can have a cyber food fight, tell your friends how you are feeling or simply poke the girl next door. Now, 200 and something friends later it’s seemingly just a place for ex-girlfriends to stalk you and a place to pretend how great your life is, was or is going to be. I don’t give a fuck how the revision is going, I don’t give a fuck if you put half a stone on and I really don’t give a fuck if your boyfriend just don’t seem to care anymore. I know, I’m a heartless bastard but, I’m a brutally honest heartless bastard.

For anyone who hasn’t got the foggiest of ideas of what I’m on about, here’s a step by step guide on how to fall from normality straight into a great big bloody hole of lies, conspiracies and deception.

Step 1 – The essential tool for any potential face booker is a computer. Let’s be honest, in the year 2008 if your home doesn’t contain a computer you are either 105 years old, completely illiterate or living in Wales.

Step 2 – So you have your computer and now all you need in order to register is an existing e-mail address or the mental capacity to create a new one. This can be particularly difficult if your name is John Smith, for instance you may find your Hotmail account becomes [email protected] to avoid duplicates.

Step 3 – Verification e-mail in hand you are now free to create an account. In every day life you shred all of your old mail, cover your hand whilst entering your pin code at the ATM machine and you never share bank details with anyone over the phone. Create a face book account and you find yourself willingly declaring home addresses, marital status and mobile phone numbers. Fuck me! It’s not like bad people are using the world wide web is it? Clearly paedophiles, fraudsters and hackers haven’t quite caught up with modern technology yet.

Step 4 – Congratulations! You have just become a member of the world’s largest dating agency. Feel free to write endless amounts of irrelevant shit about yourself n order to make your miserable life sound more interesting than it really is. Before long you will become an expert in deception. You will be telling so many tales even your inner self will believe that you have met Ghandi, been to the moon and had sex with Kiera Knightly. And that was just a Monday.

Step 5 – Now the difficult bits are out of the way it’s time to upload photos of yourself, pets, your twatish mates, relatives you despise and the pets you probably don’t care about but a picture of something fluffy will make you appear caring and warm hearted. Argh, I think I’m going to be sick. Always remember that the girl you had a crush on at school will undoubtedly have an account so be sure to upload a good picture of yourself. A picture of you leaving court following a trial for burglary might not go down too well. Stick to profile shots on white backgrounds, much more sought after.

Step 6 – You have made a list of all the bands you have never heard of, the books you have never read and the quotes you don’t understand. Now it’s time to get some friends. At first you stalk out your best mates, the ones closest to you, who you see all the time, socialise with and tell your secrets to. You can’t stop there though so you start to add the people who are ‘kinda your friend.’ You played football with Dave when you were twelve, you sat next to Martin in art and you once fingered ‘Dirty Donna’ behind the bike shed after double Maths. Accumulating friends has now become an addiction and you find yourself seeking friends like an heroin addict seeking his next fix. The girl who sits behind you on the bus makes an appearance in your friends list. Even the Asian guy who delivers pizzas to your house twice a year has become your best chum. It’s not just you who has become lumbered with this addiction. Other people are now adding you. People who’s only binding connection with you is the fact that they are human and you are human.

Step 7 – Join a group. Or should that read, ‘Join a Cult?’ Appreciation Societies seem to be popular. Obese whale Lisa Riley, Deadrey Barlow and leather skin David Dickinson are bound to have one. Join now, run quick before these D class celebrities drowned in there own appreciation.

Step 8 – Update your status. Tell everyone in the world exactly how your feeling. Suicidal? Why not cry for help? This is your stage, tell all of your best friends that you are so low you are considering therapy, Prozak or even burning your signed Mark Owen photograph from 1992.

Upon review of the above, I concluded that it was just a bit of harmless fun, and I need to get over it and spend my spare time partaking in proper hobbies like football or playing instruments, rather than mindlessly scouring the internet for conspiracies in between wanking myself sideways. That was until about a week later when I read about the ‘Facebook Killer’ Wayne Forrester. Wayne has been jailed for life after stabbing his wife Emma to death after she changed her marital status to single days after they had split. What the fuck? You didn’t have to stab her Wayne, you could have just chucked an imaginary cyber cake at her, or started some malicious internet rumour, detailing how she wanked Donkeys off in her spare time, just for the craic. It’s a fucking tragic story, but instead of her profile status reading ‘Emma is a tad tipsey after drinking too much red wine with friends’ , it now reads, ‘Emma is brown bread.’ And instead of Waynes profile status reading, ‘Wayne is looking on the bright side’ it now reads, ‘Wayne is in jail getting brutally arse raped by Bubba and his pals’

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I found out that I’m just not sure if Face Book represents the end of Humanity. Suggestions anyone?
(Sir_Digby_Chicken_Caeser [email protected], Mon 10 Nov 2008, 20:18, 11 replies)

I found a pound in the ground..
..sound
(lost, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 19:44, 5 replies)

My cousin
Found £5000 in a sports bag in a hedge outside the co-op.

She gave it to the police but no-one claimed it so they just gave it to her :)
(i should have joined myspace, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 19:17, 1 reply)

I found that if I drink red wine my poo turns green.

( riverghost servicing your mum since, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 16:51, 6 replies)

The story of the owl
(or how staying in is far more fun than going out)

Let me take you back about 10 years to a warm sunny day in the May half term. Mummy and Daddy Sinner have promised the little Sinners (me and my little brother) a day at the zoo. This however was not to be - the littlest Sinner had been naughty all week so as punishment the trip to the zoo was cancelled.

So there I was minding my own business walking downstairs to make something with my Fimo when there, in the middle of the stairs was the most beautiful barn owl.

"Come quickly" says I - "there's an owl on the stairs" so over the littlest Sinner comes to take a look "Mummy, Daddy - there's an owl on the stairs". "Oh yes, so there is" says Daddy Sinner "Don't be silly" says Mummy Sinner "you're having me on". "But there is, there is, there really is".

After much persuasion Mummy Sinner comes over and sees that yes, indeed there is an owl on our stairs! So we boxed up the owl and took it to the bird lady of Taplow. She is a lovely person who has devoted most of her life to looking after sick animals, especially birds. I've tried looking for an article about her, but can't find any. She's not quite an eccentric - too nice for that!

Turns out the owl had only flown from the community centre, less than 1/4 mile away so it had to be given back that afternoon.

But the owl is certainly the best thing I've ever found - I love owls!
(deadly_sinners, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 16:50, 4 replies)

I've found...
...myself suddenly becoming domesticated.

My once die hard bachelor ways have been cast aside, for today I've found myself emptying cat litter trays, doing the school run to collect chickenlady's ever charming nuggets and am now snatching a few minutes to check QOTW while I attempt to prepare a decent family meal for four.

All this from a man who once swore blind he'd grow old disgracefully.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 10 Nov 2008, 16:47, 7 replies)

Not much but it made me happy
Found a pound coin left in a supermarket trolley a couple months ago.
Bought a lucky dip lotto ticket with it and won £63 :)
Best thing I've found for ages.
(insomniac-surfer oh go on then, just this once, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 16:41, Reply)

I just found a segment of delicious sweetie-chew
in a presumed empty wrapper I was chucking at the bin. It 'thonked' suspiciously as it hit the wall to bounce in, and thankfully missed.

Mmm, unexpected sugar.
( Jessie © needs pirate name suggestions, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 16:23, 2 replies)

It was a dark and cold night...
At some point in early to mid-2007 someone to proud to admit they couldn't handle him, or too drunk to know what they were doing, left a 6 month old Pup tied to a lamp-post in a dark pub car park on a wet and cold night somewhere in Ireland.

Not long after closing time, some anonymous gentleman, to who I am eternally grateful, came out of the pub, found the pup, and had the good graciousness to take him to the safety of a local dog pound.

Now at least warm and dry, the little pup was not quite out of the fire yet. Despite lost dog posters no owner was forthcoming and he now faced Ireland's strict euthanasia rules for abandoned and stray dogs.

Thankfully the pound had an arrangement with a local vet who wasn't happy with this policy. This anonymous vet, who I am also eternally grateful to, had a system where he would give the dogs a check up and then send them over the Irish sea to rescues in the UK.

And so the little pup continued his journey this time inside a crate on a rocky boat heading for the UK.

In October 2007, my girlfriend and I, after putting it off finally decided to get ourselves the dog we had both been longing for.

We visited a local rescue (http://www.dbarc.org.uk) after seeing a particular dog on their website. Unfortunately/fortunately the dog we had arranged to see had already been booked with a new home, and so we looked at some of the others. A little brown fella was standing up-right at his kennel door, wagging his tail for all he was worth... and as they say, the rest is history.

Via a pub car park, trigger happy dog pound, and the Irish sea, Little Al has certainly landed on his feet. He spends his days getting all the attention he deserves, charming everyone in sight, and most importantly pursuing every cat he can in the vicinity.



Yes, I do apologise, you are looking at a picture of my dog, but I thought a bit of glurge might brighten up this grey and frankly crap Monday afternoon...
(stubbledchin, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 16:00, 11 replies)

My great grandmother's ring

Being the 3rd eldest of the 'kids' in my family, and not a bit like the other two, my 18th birthday was an interesting time. My brother is the eldest and he wanted to use the opportunity of the whole family wishing to club together and get him something 'memorable' to score himself an expensive watch (fuck knows why, he didn't have a watch at all at that point due to a well deserved reputation he had for dismantling them without remembering how to put them back together again). My cousin being the second eldest decided to follow suit, and so by the time it got to my turn the family had already decided to get me the same. It was very last minute when I caught onto this plan, due to my grandma's involuntary lack of discretion over what was supposed to be secret, but handy as I had absolutely no desire or use for a watch of that value. Lots of annoyed mutterings in the family despite them not actually having bought the present yet and then my mum approached me to ask what I'd actually like. I hadn't thought about it really, I'd not realised they were wanting to get me anything significant (foolishness on my part, the precedent was set) so I had a quick think and decided that I'd get most use out of jewellery. Not something I'd go out and spend much money on but I do tend to wear something durable or not at all (much of the reason for me setting up my jewellery making business, but that's another story) so this was a great opportunity to get something I could treasure.

I told them that I never wear gold*, I just don't like it aesthetically, so something silver would be perfect, and that amethyst would be really lovely as I adore purple. What though? well...a ring would be nice?

Odd glances between my mum and grandma.
'eh?

Birthday rolls around and I find out that infact there has been a ring in my family for a good few years, an amethyst one! it belonged to my great-grandmother and was promised to my mum when she was a girl. But when my great-grandmother passed away the ring became a point of dispute as my grandma liked it too and thought it should be hers, as it couldn't be decided the ring just sat, probably for about 18 years in fact as she passed away just before I was born as far as I can tell. It was decided that this ring should now be passed a generation further down, that I would appreciate it and at last it would have a proper home.

People of b3ta- it's gorgeous. It's gold, but worn and weathered so it's virtually white. It has a large pale stone in it sat in a handmade setting, so slightly askew if you look really closely. It doesn't look like anything I would go out and choose but I love it so much that I never take it off, it's swapped fingers as I've put on weight, lost weight and put it back on. I play with it absent-mindedly when I'm bored, excited or nervous, with each finger change I've had a period of readjustment where I've had moments of pure terror as I've felt for the ring and not found it where expected so panicked briefly that it is gone...and then once, it actually was.

I'd swapped it to another finger briefly to take a silly photo, a Borat moustache on my hand**, in honour of the very first showing of the film I was going to see that day! I forgot to move it back as I rushed around getting ready. I had a bath, got dressed and ran out knowing it was going to be tight if I made it to the cinema on time. I did, but on the way back out I noticed my hand was bare and my ring was nowhere to be seen, I felt sick to my stomach.

I went back inside and checked the cinema, tracing my steps back and forth over and over. I left my number with the cinema staff despite knowing they probably would just pocket it if they found it anyway. I traced my steps carefully back to the car, pulled everything out the car, looked in every nook and crannie. Drove home, traced my steps back up to the flat, grabbed a flashlight and checked the car again. I went around the whole flat, everywhere I might have been, ANYwhere it could have fallen. Nothing. Then it dawned on me, where had I seen it last? right before my bath. Shit. The plughole looked unreassuringly roomy, I grabbed another of my rings to check and sure enough it just fit through. SHIT.
I had all the pipes out, desperately hoping it had been caught before being washed out, but it wasn't there and finally I had to consider that I'd lost it for good.
I know it's just a possesion but I could have cried, for weeks afterwards as my hand slipped unwittingly to feel for where it should sit I remembered again and again that it was gone. Thinking about how much I'd loved it, thinking about how I could ever explain to my family that it was lost.

Then about 6 months later my flat mate was pulling some stuff away from one of our external pipes in the bathroom and she found something, she had this annoying habit of giving a running commentary on whatever she was doing, loud, in the hopes you'd react to some of it. Mostly I'd learned to tune it out, but I could hear her muttering about this find next door "looks like a ring". It took a second to sink in, then barely daring to hope I ran to join her and look for myself, and sure enough- there was my ring. God. I could have cried all over again, the relief was like a warm duvet pulled around you on a cold night, instant, beautiful. I put the ring back on and though I'm actually pretty ridiculously paranoid about taking it off, even briefly, now, was determined not to lose it again.

I mean, I did, but that wasn't my fault and this is waaay long enough ;)

Apologies for length, it is niiiice.

* The rest of the family feeling guilty at what was actually spent on me in the end got me a thick gold link necklace and bracelet set that ungrateful as I feel, I've never worn. It's hideous.
** I'll find the photo out if you like, it's even more hideous than the gold set
( Jessie © needs pirate name suggestions, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 15:44, 18 replies)