I got into my car this morning and saw something round gleaming in the drinks’ holder. I looked closer and saw what seemed to be a large golden ring. I picked it up, had a good look at it and wondered how it got into my car in the night.

I thought, “Maybe an angel donated a ring to me” but had to smile at that idea. I decided to give my DH a call as he had used my car last night. I got the answer about the mystery of the ring.

Apparently, while driving home from work in Basel, he came across a British licensed car. It was stranded along the road just into the French border and the man looked pretty distressed. DH decided to stop, seeing many cars had whizzed by when the man waved his arm. DH described that the man was of brownish skin tone and had 2 small children with a wife who had a scarf on.

He wasn’t certain if they were of Middle Eastern origin or of the Romany gypsy background. The man spoke not a word of English. The basic French my DH could muster (My DH’s knowledge of French is basic and with the hand gestures movements), he (worked out/got the inkling) got the idea that the man had run out of petrol and had no money to pay for it as his card was apparently blocked. He begged my DH to help him with some money so he could drive further and get to his destination.

My DH debated whether this was the moment he’s either be a ‘schmuck’ or a ‘saint’. He decided to take out whatever Euros he had in his wallet and give it to this (stranger) man. The man looked really happy (relief) and promised to give (return) DH the money as soon as he could by asking for DH’s mobile phone number and house (home) address. He also insisted on giving DH the ring on his finger as a sort of deposit (pledge?) on his promise. DH declined but the man insisted.

I asked hubby why he didn’t just go to the petrol station and buy a jerry can of petrol for the man as that’s a more genuine help (in my opinion). But DH said the call of the bladder was strong so he had to keep driving the last 25 km to our house. And when I asked DH why he decided to help, his answer was, “If it’s genuine, I can’t let 2 small children sit in a car while their father pleads for help till God knows when. I just think of them.” It was kind of payback time.

This reminded me of our own unfortunate incident. In 2005, we drove from the UK to the South of France (a whopping 1600 km journey). Sometime in the middle of the night, our gas tank looked like it was nearing empty. DH decided to turn off the main road to look for a small village pump. But before we could find one, the car abruptly stopped. It was very, very dark, no lights anywhere and there was no such thing as iPhone or Blackberry then that we could do a search on maps to find information online.

We prayed for someone to come along to help. I flagged a car that was driving, with reggae music blasting out from its speakers. The man was my black angel. He spoke fluent English (which we didn’t expect in that villagey region of France) and offered to drive DH to what he knew was the nearest petrol pump. We had to trust that DH was going to be safe with this man and that his little family would not encounter any more problems sitting on the side of a pitch black road. My reggae artist saved us that night.

Now it makes me wonder if this man was really genuine. Or was he one of those scam artist who uses women and children to further his ‘art’. Or could it be this man was an angel sent from above to test if my hubby had any humanity in him? Who knows…

As for now, that ring sits in my car, waiting for its owner to claim it or if we never hear from him, I might just take it to the jewellers to see if it’s genuine…

What would you have done had you been in my husband’s shoes? And have you been through something similar?