Rarely does something flushed down a toilet inspire so much joy.
A Chino Hills couple earlier this month recovered their missing engagement ring more than a year after it was flushed away.
Yana Glass contacted the city for help last March after her young son flushed her engagement ring down the porcelain throne. The boy’s stepfather, John Glass, told ABC 7 he was surprised early that morning when he heard the 5-year-old flush the toilet, a critical post-potty step the child would often forget.
It turns out he flushed more than they bargained for.
“It was in the bathroom, it was shiny, he wanted to look at it, dropped it and didn’t want to tell us and thought the best thing to deal with this was flush it down and hide the crime,” Yana told the news station. After a few hours the boy confessed and the husband-to-be started his hunt for the square-cut diamond ring.
He tried disconnecting the toilet and used a sewer inspection camera, but the ring eluded him. City officials later said his efforts may have pushed it even further down the pipe.
Public works personnel searched the sewer mainline using an inspection truck but couldn’t find the shiny token. Although the search came up empty-handed, all hope was not lost. Sanitation staff told the couple it was possible the ring would remain near the home because of the property’s location at the end of a cul-de-sac.
The lost ring didn’t derail their wedding plans. The couple bought a new ring and got married two months later, according to ABC 7.
But this month, after a roughly 14-month wait, sanitation crews finally found the ring during routine maintenance and returned it to the happy couple.
They cleaned it off first.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
