John, my husband, is always busy with work, business trips, and other responsibilities. I had stopped questioning why it was so hard to get him to do anything around the house, but the stench from the sink was too pervasive and unbearable, so I decided the best option was…
No, not to call a plumber. My husband works in the plumbing industry, so most likely his colleagues or subordinates would be the ones to come. I didn’t want to embarrass my husband by showing his incompetence, so I made several more attempts to convince him to fix the pipes, but to no avail.
Eventually, I couldn’t stand it anymore and had a full-blown meltdown, which finally got his attention (I rarely yell at him). While he was fixing the pipes, I watched closely. I was tired of the smell and wanted to know its cause.
Among the pile of garbage that fell out of the pipes, I noticed something very shiny and picked it up. It was a gold ring with a beautiful blue gemstone. At first, I thought our kids had been playing with it, but the gold was real, even had a hallmark. I don’t wear rings because I’m allergic to them. My friends usually wore costume jewelry and didn’t own any gold, and his mother only wore her wedding ring. When I asked my husband where the ring could have come from, he shrugged and walked away.
I cleaned the ring thoroughly and suddenly realized that I had definitely seen it somewhere before. I distinctly remembered seeing this ring on someone’s finger. I just had to remember whose.
Then the memory came to me. It was in the fall. My husband and I, his friends, and their wives went on a picnic. All the women were busy preparing snacks while the men lit a bonfire. One of them, Olivia, was showing off her new manicure, and this ring was on her finger!
She had never been to our house before, so it took me only seconds to put two and two together.
“Did you cheat on me with Olivia? With your friend’s wife?” I asked. He didn’t even look at me, just lowered his head.
“Maybe, but it didn’t mean anything,” he replied. I just nodded in agreement and went to pack my and the kids’ things. For the past few months, I had constantly felt sorry for him, thinking that he was working late and was tired because the job was demanding. That’s when I found out what his job really was, and all thanks to the stench from the clogged pipes. Without them, I would have remained a naive fool.
