A trucker’s tantrum proves costly

Tuesday, July 31, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS MORRIS

Tennessee trucker Roy Newton set out for California in an 18-wheeler full of frozen chickens with a 3.75 -carat diamond ring in his pocket. Well, not in his pocket.

Newton was going to spring the $10,000 ring on his girlfriend - a marquis-cut diamond set on a wide 14 - karat white gold band engraved inside with "Your Dreams Can Come True."

They met in Las Vegas four months ago during a long - haul stopover and he's visited every two weeks since. She doesn't want her name in the paper.

Newton was going to give her the ring not as a marriage proposal, but as a little love token. A way to say, " Someday, maybe, if you see fit."

Their love is the profoundest of puppy, the 43 - year - old trucker says. The sort of punch to the gut he wasn't expecting.

"She's the love of my life," Newton says. "I wanted her to know that it was unconditional."

Now he wishes he had insured the ring.

Newton planned to drop his freight off in Riverside, Calif., then swing by Las Vegas with the ring before heading home to Tennessee. He got as far as Arizona and decided to scrap the plan. He called her and announced he was coming early, cargo in tow.

She balked. She wanted him to stick to the schedule. The couple hung up with this understanding: Newton wasn't coming by with a boxcar full of thawing birds.

But he was too giddy. He hit the state line late last Thursday and couldn't wait. He pulled into the Flying J truck stop on Cheyenne Avenue at 11 p.m., took a shower, changed his clothes and headed to her house - the ring, not hidden in his pocket, but tucked inside a bouquet of roses sitting shotgun.

He would hand her the flowers. She would see the ring, weep and wash with waterfalls of serotonin . Surprise!

Newton's girlfriend doesn't like surprises.

Newton called from Interstate 15 to say he was coming. She said it was a mistake. Words were exchanged. Halfway through the argument, Newton hurled the roses out his window.

"My temper got the best of me," he said. "My emotions and my feelings for her got the best of me."

When he got to Riverside he realized what he had done. He'd thrown the ring out the window with the roses.

Newton hurled $10,000 into the smog somewhere south of the Spaghetti Bowl.

She called him the following day to discuss their fight. He told her, "It's way worse than you think."

Newton came back last Sunday for an all-day highway combing. He turned up nothing. This didn't surprise him. Just made him nauseated.

His girlfriend, meanwhile, is straight shocked, bereft over a ring she never knew.

Although what losses the pocket book can't afford, love can. The two are now talking marriage - just not all of the sudden, or any time soon.

"I won't be surprising her again," Newton said. "We've made up, but I can't afford another $10,000."

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