Very Crazy Story

Two years ago, in June 2006, just after finishing my last classes during my senior year at MIT, I went with Jeff and some friends on a cruise to the Bahamas. One of the days we went to Norwegian Cruise Line's private island for relaxing and swimming. I forgot to take my class ring off when I went swimming, and at some point while I was splashing around, trying to snorkel and avoid fish, I lost it.

Jeff and I looked, and lots of other nice people searched with us, but we had been out in the water, and it was probably buried in the sand, so we didn't have much hope. In fact, we didn't find it, and headed back to the ship at the end of the day, without the ring.

At graduation, I had to borrow a ring from a friend to participate in the traditional turning-the-ring-around to signify graduating. I'd completely given up on ever seeing the original ring again, so I ordered a new one, and since then have been much more careful about not wearing it at the beach.

Anyway, today I received a phone call from a number I didn't recognize, and the person on the other end of the line says, "Did you go on a cruise lately?" Confused, I said, "No, not lately." And the person continued, asking if I'd been on Norwegian, or been to their private island. I replied that I'd been there, but over a year ago. "Did you leave anything there? Maybe lose something?" he asked. It turned out that he had gone out with a metal detector into the water, and found about six rings, one of which was mine. Since it has MIT on it, and my name on the inside, he was able to track me down and get my phone number. So now the ring is in the mail, on its way back to me after a two-year separation, during which it sat buried under the sand in the water near Norwegian Cruise Line's private island. Crazy.