Wouldn’t the most obvious place be on your finger?
I know this won’t resolve the mystery, but a solution to the OP’s problem - when you are next at a gas station just go to the area where people put air in their tyres - there are always heaps of valve caps lying about.
Today you lose, tomorrow you take advantage of someone else’s loss - it’s the circle of life.
Hah! I just told my boss yesterday to look for his missing wallet there (his freezer, not yours). As it turns out, it was “right next to him on the shelf”, wherever that is.
So what do I do with this wallet that was next to my ring?
Put it with the dryer socks until you find a mate?
Presumably your ring finger contracted (due to the chill of the freezer) more than the ring itself, making it easier for it to slip off (especially if it caught on a shelf or package). And that same cold made you less susceptible to feeling that at the time.
Good find, and a good tip for the rest of us! And I am interested in how a ring lost in Maryland turned up in South Dakota.
OP here.
Mystery solved!
Or at least deepened.
A tire cap turned up on the floor of the entryway closet, into which I take off my shoes.
I’m assuming that what happened was 1) the cap fell off into my sneakers and got entangled in the laces, and then 2) fell out of the laces when I took the sneakers off.
!!KISMET!! Fellow Dopers! This turned up on my YouTube feed this morning.
Actual documentation:
I think the first reply was pretty close if I do say so myself.
(From last night’s Chinese take-out dinner.)
Now, you’re just scaring me!