How did you spend your Saturday night? I went dumpster diving.

K and I had only known each other for three months when he turned 27. He had mentioned once that he was wanting to get a casual watch, so I knew that's what I wanted to get him for his birthday. I went to four different stores looking for the perfect watch before I finally wound up choosing a band and face separately.

I was ridiculously nervous that he'd hate it. Really ridiculously nervous. But everything turned out great. K loved the watch.

While K is deployed, quite a few of his "civilian clothes," including the watch, are being stored in my apartment. Over the summer, when I was getting ready for K to come home for R&R, I noticed the watch had died. I took it to the Fossil store to get the battery replaced, and an employee at the store accidentally broke one of the hands off the watch face. I could send it off to be repaired (under warranty), but it would take 3 weeks, which was longer than K would be home.

The employee checked the computer to see if any nearby stores carried the same watch face, but it was discontinued. Since it seemed K would be without his watch no matter what, I decided to wait until the end of the deployment to get the battery replaced. At least that way, it wouldn't just sit running for several months.

I sent the watch off a few weeks ago, and I got it back good as new about a week and a half ago. I put the watch in my mail stack to sort through later.

For some reason, I thought about the watch face yesterday morning. I didn't see it on my table, so I realized I'd probably accidentally thrown it in the trash when I'd sorted through my mail a few days ago. There wasn't anything in the trash that could ruin it, and I was running late leaving for work, so I made a mental note to go through my trash when I got home last night.

Unfortunately, my mental note didn't register until tonight -- and I took my trash out this morning. I looked everywhere in my apartment that I could think of that I could have put the watch face. It was in none of those places.

I headed out to the dumpsters, but sure enough, they were loaded with boxes and Christmas trees (who throws those things away already?!). I searched the bags that hadn't made it into the dumpsters, hoping maybe I'd missed when I'd tossed my garbage bag over the little fence surrounding the dumpsters. No such luck.

I ran back to my apartment and started searching more closely through all of the same places again. I called my dad and told him all about the watch and how I'd misplaced it. Very quickly into the story, I was crying. By the end of it, I was sobbing. I knew it was ridiculous and that K wouldn't be remotely as upset as I was about all of it, but I couldn't help it. When I finished my second round of searching, there was still no sign of the watch.

I couldn't quit crying, and I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. I honestly felt like I could've thrown up. I really just wanted to be able to talk to K about it right then, but that wasn't possible.

I got off the phone, and I headed back out to the dumpsters, armed with a flashlight. I tried to search as much as I could by touching as little of other people's trash as possible (I'm a huge germophobe). My dad called me back to see if I'd found the watch yet. He offered to drive to Dallas with my brother so the two of them could dig through the dumpsters for me.

The thought of my dad and brother driving two and a half hours late on a Saturday night (they wouldn't have gotten here until 10:30 or later) just to dig through dumpsters seemed awful, but the gesture was so sweet it made me cry even harder. I told my dad I'd keep digging and give him an update soon.

After several more minutes of digging, I was able to find two empty boxes I'd thrown away this morning, which gave me a little hope, but I couldn't see any sign of my garbage bag. I moved around to the other side of the dumpster to get a different perspective. A Christmas tree was on that side, along with quite a few large boxes, so it was hard to really see much. I'd been looking for quite a while, and the whole search seemed futile. I wasn't worried enough to climb into the dumpster and really dig, so after over an hour of crying and searching, I gave up.

I called my dad back and admitted defeat. He offered again for him and my brother to come down and help. I told him no again, and I told him K and I would just have to choose a new watch face together once he's home. It'll have its own sentimental value because we'll choose it together, and it'll be a "Yay, you're home" watch face. Thinking of it that way helped me stop crying.

A few hours (and a hot shower!) later, I've still got a headache from crying so hard. I feel a lot more at peace about the whole thing, especially since K and I can pick out a new watch together.

That being said, I'm still not completely confident I won't have a bit of an urge to go dumpster diving again tomorrow.