Amy D Wilson

Cincinnati

From time to time, members of The Enquirer staff will write personal essays to give you a sense of the journalists who bring you the news.

On our most recent anniversary, my husband bought me a pair of pearl earrings that look like peapods.

On a most recent trip to lunch with my boss Downtown, one of them fell into a sidewalk grate, you know, the kind where the iron bars are wide enough for everything to fall through but exclusionary enough there is no chance on God's Green Earth that you will ever see it again.

I peered down. My boss, heaven help him, also got down on his hands and knees and we gaped at the black void below.

Thirty feet of yawning openness then water.

Nope. Gone.

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I am old enough now that I figure, well, move on. Don't whine. We had a nice business lunch.

But as soon as I got back to the newsroom, I asked a city reporter exactly who I might call about such things. He gave me a very nice list, complete with numbers (and a likelihood of response) and I started calling. First up, Stormwater Management. I was put on hold for 30 seconds. I explained my plight as an ordinary taxpayer begging for some mercy. To my utter astonishment, I was told they'd be at the corner of Fourth and Race within the hour. I got a call five minutes later. They would be there in five minutes.

I hoofed it back to the grate. A safety-vested man named John rolled up and stepped out. Big, hearty, friendly, he asked me to point to where I thought my earring had left me. I did. Oh, ma'am, that grate is not a stormwater drain. It's likely a ventilation system vent for the big building next to it.

The building being the Carew Tower. So, yeah, big.

John had made me feel lucky. I told him I would try to find the maintenance folks and see what they could do. He said OK, then, ever so nicely, "I'll go with you."

We knocked on a few locked doors before we decided to go into the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza and find someone who knew something. Standing at the bank of elevators, an immaculately dressed woman asked if she could help.

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In no time at all, she was on the phone with the Tower engineer who would be right down to assist.

John and I chatted pleasantly in the interim. I thanked him for his kindness, then found out his weekend was going to consist of him going with his wife on Saturday to buy sundresses and, on Sunday, the family would celebrate John's father's birthday.

I thanked him again for this kindness to a stranger.

John then said, "Society makes it hard for us to be nice to each other, doesn't it?"

I agreed and we both kind of laughed that we were going against the tide here.

Then the engineer came off the elevator and, after a short exchange, we were told that the errant earring had probably dropped into an electrical space owned by Duke Energy.

Good to know but, jeez, I had to get back to work. And Duke was maybe a call too far. John and I walked back out and toward the grate.

"We tried," he said, I think to cheer me up. "But it was a shot worth taking."

My thoughts on growing up

John and I lingered for a minute in the warm spring air, trying to decide how to wrap up the last 20 or so minutes. We went for the gentle hug.

And as I was hugging him, I saw it. Slipped into a crack between the bars and the concrete, my earring.

I gasped. "John, look."

I knelt and picked it up, cradling it, showing it off to my new friend.

Then we spontaneously went for the vigorous hug, the lingering hug, the meaningful hug.

And John told me it had been the worst week. His truck had had a flat tire. The battery had gone dead. The Easter rains had taxed his whole staff.

This was, then, the saving grace, he decided. The fated moment when the universe is trying to tell you that you are going to be fine. That kindness matters. That it, well, actually pays off.

I told him the earring had meant a great deal to me.

He said he knew that.

He told me our encounter had meant as much.

We hugged again.

Earlier, you know, when he first drove up to help me, I had told him that "this must be my tax dollars at work."

He had corrected me, "No, actually it's your water bill."

I never thought I'd say this but, thanks, water bill.

Amy Wilson is an editor at Enquirer Media.