Lisa Barlow’s Toilet Ring Meltdown Belongs in Bravo’s Hall of Fame

Seeing rich people constantly teetering on the edge of losing it all is precisely why we come to Real Housewives. But normally, the women on these shows are worried about losing critically important things: their parental rights, their sobriety, their iconic New York townhouse that had been a safe haven for countless interns and wayward cast members. On Tuesday’s episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Season 4, the stakes were a bit lower—you just wouldn’t know that from how melodramatically Lisa Barlow reacted when one of her diamond rings slipped off in an airport bathroom.

The Salt Lake City Housewives have barely deboarded their plane at the start of a cast trip to Palm Springs before Lisa begins to rant and rave about her missing piece of jewelry. (Many gay men have faced this same plight within the city limits of Palm Springs, just with a different kind of ring.) Luckily, fellow castmate Heather Gay—related to the aforementioned Palm Springs Gays only by spirit, not by blood—captures kernels of Lisa’s meltdown while hiding out in a toilet stall. What follows is a reminder for us little people to keep valuing the smaller things in life, lest we let our egos become so big that we end up rummaging through waste bins like Lisa in this magnificent Housewives fiasco.

“Does anybody see my ring on the floor?” Lisa asks, not only to her castmates but seemingly to every other person in the women’s restroom at the Palm Springs airport. The episode’s editors are then kind enough to supply us with two gifts: a timestamp that reads “10:30 am” and an exterior shot of the bathroom, which has a line of people so long that it stretches past the door. “I am hiding out in the bathroom because Lisa’s gone completely unhinged,” Heather says in her home video. “She came out with her pants half down, screaming about having lost one of her rings.” Meanwhile, Lisa can be heard in the background of the video, pleading with RHOSLC Housewife Monica Garcia to let her know if Monica spots it.

You might be thinking that a woman hunting for her wedding ring in a public bathroom is not such an outrageous idea, until you find out that Lisa is not looking for her wedding ring. She’s simply searching for a ring. She claims that it has sentimental value because it was given to her by her husband, John, which I sympathize with. But it’s not the bejweled symbol of the marriage contract that legally binds her—certainly she can live without it! Just because it’s not her wedding ring, however, that doesn’t stop Lisa from enlisting her Housewife army to scour each grimy corner of that bathroom.

‘Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’ Recap: The Housewives Are Doing Ketamine Now?

“I don’t know what could’ve happened because we were searching high and low in that lovely public restroom,” cast member Meredith Marks adds in her confessional. Lisa claims that they were inside the restroom looking for at least 45 minutes. A few moments later, she’s outside speaking with airport security, filing a report for a lost item. How rich that this episode aired one day after the anniversary of 9/11; in the last 22 years, the United States have become so secure that we can finally focus on the real threat to American safety: whomever might have stolen Lisa Barlow’s diamond ring.

“Every woman in [that bathroom] was like, ‘Let’s find her ring!’” Lisa tells the security agents. She says it was such a gusto, such a passion for womanhood, that it’s hard not to giggle. And I know precisely what kind of phenomenon she’s talking about, too. There are few experiences in this life more intimate than connecting with women in a public restroom, as I have done innumerable times in the gender neutral bathrooms at shitty dive bars across the greater New York City metropolitan area. Lisa might be a Mormon, but as Heather mentions earlier in the episode, she drinks “Lisatinis” and owns a tequila brand. This is a woman who knows there is untold power in galvanizing a group of women in a public restroom.

Lisa must’ve been convincing, given that Monica details the lengths she went to in the search as all of the women are loading into their sprinter van. “I went in the tampons, girl!” she says. “I had my hand in the toilet in a public restroom.” A friend who is willing to rifle through the tampon waste bin and put their fist into a public airport toilet is a friend for life, and if Lisa and Monica cross each other in the future, I’m not sure there will be any hope for the rest of our friendships.

Despite the best efforts of Monica and all of the other women in the bathroom who were roped into their harebrained hunt, the ring was never found—at least not that day. It may have been valued at $60,000, according to Lisa, but maybe the real value was the friendship they had together all along. And now, Lisa has something even better than an expensive ring: an ally who would do anything for her. Heather jokes in her confessional that the most expensive thing she’s ever lost is her own dignity, and after rifling through used sanitary products and toilet tissue, Monica would probably agree. A Silkwood shower will wash that right off.

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