A ring in a workplace toilet sparked a two-day rescue mission, a questionable appraisal, a cheating scandal, and one very important question: what do we do with it now?
It all started Monday when Lisa Salhany, filling in for Salt this week on Christine & Salt, made a discovery no one wants to make in a workplace bathroom.There, sitting in the bottom of a toilet, was a silver-colored ring. Christine immediately grabbed a knife. The first retrieval attempt was unsuccessful. The ring wasn’t a complete circle — it had a break in the band — which meant every time Christine tried to scoop it out, it slipped off the knife and back into the toilet. Operation Ring Recovery: Day One — FAIL.
Most people would have accepted defeat. Not Christine. The next morning, she returned to the scene of the crime and found the ring was STILL THERE. Armed with determination and a supply of poop bags borrowed from her pugs, Christine launched Operation Ring Recovery II — Back in the Bowl. This time, success. The ring was extracted, cleaned, sanitized, and brought back to the studio.
Then things got really weird. Lisa and Christine consulted a very distinguished-looking expert who claimed to be a former Antiques Roadshow appraiser. While his credentials were impossible to verify — and rumors persist that he may have been fired for reasons involving questionable appraisals — he confidently declared the ring to be an ancient Roman toe ring worth an astronomical amount of money.
Christine was immediately convinced. Unfortunately, reality soon arrived. As the story unfolded on the air, the ring’s actual owner heard the broadcast and contacted the show. Using the name “Monica” because she wished to remain anonymous, she revealed the truth.
The ring was not an ancient Roman artifact. It was cheap costume jewelry. And she had intentionally thrown it into the toilet. Why? Because she had recently discovered that her soon-to-be ex-husband had been cheating on her. The final insult? According to Monica, he had given the exact same cheap ring to the other woman. Faced with this information, Monica made the only reasonable decision available: She flushed her relationship straight into the toilet. So, after the flush, the ring survived. The marriage did not. Now we have a ring. A ring with a story. A ring that survived infidelity, two days in a workplace toilet, a failed rescue mission, a questionable appraisal, and a live radio investigation. Now the question is: What should happen to the ring? Should it be displayed in the studio? Buried in a time capsule for America’s 250th birthday? Donated to science? Auctioned off for charity? Or returned to the toilet from whence it came?
How a Piece of Cheap Jewelry Became Connecticut’s Greatest Archaeological Discovery
How a Piece of Cheap Jewelry Became Connecticut’s Greatest Archaeological Discovery
