My 12th new experience was not planned. Far from it. And it was the result of one of those bizarre things that happen infrequently in our lives, thank goodness. I was actually working on what was to be my 12th experience and without ruining the surprise I will just say I was using my dremel tool and ended up with fine particles of plastic all over my clothing. I hopped off the deck onto the lawn and started brushing the dust from my clothes. There was a lot on my pants and as I was brushing my hands over the sides of my legs my wedding ring flew off on the backstroke and landed somewhere behind me in the grass.
I searched for a few minutes with no luck. I called Ariel outside to help and we searched for another hour with no luck. We both even went out to the street behind our house to see if it somehow had flown over the fence. I scooped muck from the pond to make sure it wasn't in there. We walked barefoot over area. We got on our hands and knees and felt all the grass. Now my ring isn't exactly tiny so I would have thought we could have felt it, but that area of the lawn happens to be pretty thick. While making some phone calls for some sympathy and advice, Ariel headed inside to google who might sell metal detectors and found that our local sporting goods store had them and one was on sale.
I made a quick trip to Sports Authority and bought the sale machine for $89. It did not list that it could find gold, but they said I could bring it back if it didn't. It was almost 9pm by this time and the light was fading fast. I put the detector together, added the batteries which I thankfully had the presence of mind to purchase there (although at an outrageous price). I manned the detector sweeping it over areas of the lawn. When metal is detected it makes a loud whine. I threw my other ring onto the grass, which of course landed right on top and was very easy to see to make sure it would pick up the signal from a gold ring, which it did. We had some false tones and Ariel searched the grass as I would keep sweeping that area to show where the tone was. After several misses where it was just picking up some metal buried under the lawn we got a hit! Ariel dug around and found my ring buried well inside a thick clump of grass. We had been over that area on hands, knees and feet several times without success. So kudos to the metal detector and kudos to Ariel!
The metal detector is kind of neat. I will try it in the front yard to see if I can find the diamond earring I lost there last year while gardening, but I'm pretty doubtful on that one. Still, it's worth a shot. And it may just come in handy in the future. If nothing else it can be a really expensive stud finder. But I'm not complaining about the price. This wasn't my original wedding ring, it was a bigger "I can afford this now" type of ring purchased about 10 years ago. So the metal detector was worth EVERY penny!
Now back to work on the project formerly known as #12, I'm just hoping it will be #13 and nothing new hits in the meantime...
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