Ring-gate

My Diddy, Lord bless him, is getting on up in age. And his sickness of late is starting to wear on him. So yesterday he and his “girlfriend” took another ride up to the doctor’s office. He hasn’t seen his real doctor concerning this recent ailment, only the urgent care doctor. He’s been doing fine up to now as far as my sister and I could tell. It’s a slow process at his age getting over bronchitis. So his regular doctor, Dr. Sickens (yep, his real name) is trying to help and puts my Diddy on what they call Pretizone, or something. These meds seemed to wig him out a bit. He’s hypersensitive anyway. My sister said she’d been having trouble with him all afternoon, talking out of his head and such, and she warned me before he called my house. He sounded fine at first on the line, then he started talking about this ring that he had lost and how it was, according to the Lord, up at McDonald’s in the bathroom. Yeah, see…the Lord told him it was up there. It was a foggy night and he had NO business driving in his condition. And my sister, who lives practically next door, was worn down from working all day, dealing with him already and her own illness, was in no mood to leave her house. So I volunteered to go get him and drive him up there, about a 20 mile round trip for me, no big deal. So he gets in the car, can’t get the seat beat buckled (the Dodge Caliber seat belt system is NOT that complicated) so I have to buckle it for him as I’m pulling out of his driveway. “Look out for that car!” he shouts. No cars were coming. It was our own lights that he probably saw. He’s just not used to seeing car lights on the dark, two lane blacktop. So we get to McDonald’s after scattered conversation and he walks in and heads straight for the bathroom. I walk to counter and ask if anyone’s turned in a ring. Negative. About that time he’s coming out disappointed. I walk in there and give it a once over even jamming my hand down in the paper towel waste basket. Nothing. Despite an earlier call from his “girlfriend” his mind was now completely satisfied and so we left, knowing for sure that it wasn’t there. On the way home, I get the “when you gonna start going to church?” speech again. No good deed goes unpunished, right? And he tells me if I start giving 10% of my earnings to the church, then I would be surprised at the difference it would make. And I’m thinking, “yeah, there goes my wine money”. I had $9 in my pocket at the time and I was also saying to myself “When I get you outta this car I’m gonna give 100% of that to the WINE MAN!” In 10 minutes I’m checking out at the grocery store. The girl asks “Do you want that double bagged” “Nah, I guess one is enough to hide it from the preacher” I tell her.
Of course, ten minutes after getting home my Diddy calls again. “You won’t ever guess where I found that ring” he says. “It was on that little seat area in the shower”. Will came home after I hung up with my Dad, so I told him all about it. “See what you got to look forward to” I tell him. “Jeez, I hope not” he says.