O, frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!

Two days of tension and anxiety ended yesterday afternoon.
Maria's wedding ring went missing on Sunday. She normally puts it into a large makeup box by the bathroom sink when she's applying hand cream or doing anything else that she wants to protect the ring from.
Aside from being a substantial investment - it was custom made by one of the top jewelry designers in Indiana - the ring incorporates the main stone from my mother's engagement ring, so it has a lot of emotional weight as well.
She did a search of the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and every other place she thought she could have put it and eventually we came to the conclusion that Pete the pup might be involved in the disappearance.
While scouring the bedroom and bathroom floor for the ring, we also considered that me might have swallowed it. After all, he chews and gnaws on everything he can get his paws on.
Maria called the vet's office and determined an X-ray would cost $75-100. Failing that, she was advised to keep an eye on his poop for the next day or two.
So we put the ongoing housebreaking training on hold and made sure he pooped in the house for the last few days, Maria taking on the task of gathering it up in a plastic wastebasket liner and suppressing her gag reflex while kneading it and feeling for the missing ring.
We had outgoing mail that didn't get picked up yesterday, so we decided to run it down to the postoffice in the county seat and also get bite to eat. Freshening up before leaving the house, Maria opened the top drawer of the jewelry case she keeps in the bathroom to pick out a pair of earrings. And there, where it had been all along, was her wedding ring.
Pete, for all his mischief and destruction, was off the hook for what could have been a deal-breaker for the little guy.
So we celebrated with dinner at White Castle and a bad movie from Blockbuster (Kicking and Screaming - formulaic and predictable and not all that funny).
I'm chalking it up to the effects of Maria's post-surgery painkillers that have left her slightly off-balance for the past week. She's pretty much back to normal, but still has the occasional lapse.