Today had a simple plan. The first step was to shake the lake effect snow off the Christmas-themed lawn ornaments in the front yard. A five minute job, easy peasy.

So off I went. Got all the snow off the ornaments and as I was shaking my hands to get the snow off them I felt something slip and I heard a bright metallic tink sound. My partnership ring, one of my most prized possessions slipped off my ring finger and tinked off my shoe and went piff right into a snowbank. The ring isn’t elaborate or expensive, it’s just a simple silver band that goes around my right ring finger. Right instead of left, because I am not like everyone else. I’ve had this ring for almost as long as I’ve been partnered. The ring itself isn’t worth much as a ring, it’s just a simple silver ring, but the meaning and significance is exceptional, at least to me.

So of course I look all around me for little ring-sized holes in the snow, checking each one and having to run inside because I can’t feel my hands with trying to paddle through about six inches of snow across the field of my front yard. I started to think of possible ways to get my ring back – heat lamps, vodka in a spray bottle, anything that might quickly reduce the snowpack and show off where my shiny ring is resting. Nothing. I shoveled and raked the snow, I hopped from one likely indentation in the snowpack to another trying to see if there was a silver ring somewhere just under the surface. Nothing. At all. At 4:55pm I called the local Rentalex, which is a tool rental shop. I asked the proprietor if he happened to have a metal detector, and he did. I rocketed out of my place and down to the Rentalex. They are located on Gull Road, so it was just a few hundred yards away as the crow flies, to get there before they close at 5pm. I was able to get the metal detector, a wee bit of training on it, and cashed out for $16. I got back home, and of course at this point the daylight is dying and I am facing having to scan my yard in the dimness of the lights mounted in the windows of my home and the streetlamp which is about 100 yards down the road.

I got out of the car, grabbed the metal detector and started to scan. I fiddled with the sensitivity and pushed it to the max. I swept and found about 8 different metal-signals all over the place. I think the detector found various bits and pieces, most specifically the sewer line and the septic tank. Many years before I bought my house, the previous owners signed up for the townships sewer system to be attached and I think they just left the septic tank in place and forgot about it. I only say that because there is a green square of grass that really does well in the spring and summer time and I think the grass is feeding off the now elderly and (probably leaking) septic tank. Anyways, the detector found lots of metal signals and I ended up scrabbling away, in vain.

So I decided that the best thing for me to do was use the detector and see if the snowbank had any signal in it, and if it did, shovel it all up into a bin and take it inside and rinse the snow with blazing hot water, melting the snow. The idea was, my ring was somewhere in the three-dimensional matrix of the snowbank. The detector could tell me where a metal signal was in two dimensions but since my shoveling panic, I had mounded snow up into a four foot high pile. I ran all over the yard, in places my ring couldn’t have been because you can’t say you checked everywhere if the missing object is still missing. I had abandoned hope that I would see a metal glint as the sun mocked me by setting right after I got home, about 5:30pm or so.

I got to scanning the entire yard, finding all the signal spots, and made a educated guess that if my ring was going to be “around” that it would be there in the high and packed snowbank from my earlier panic. I scanned up and down the mound, turning the sensitivity as high as it would possibly go, hoping that my ring would be close enough to the detector for something, for anything. The detector had two modes, a chirp mode and a squeal mode. I felt a little awkward in my yard with a metal detector sweeping over the yard as I walked like a waddling penguin. I started at one end of the snow pile and set the detector to maximum and to squeal. Very tight motions and very slowly, making a hell of a racket as it went along. I got halfway along and the detector went bonkers, huge wailing squeals in a very small spot. I got a big plastic tub and shoveled the entire snowbank, about two feet of it into the bin. I dragged the bin inside the house and parceled out sinkfuls of snow and leaves and debris into my kitchen sink and turned on the hottest water and used the sprayer. As the hot water tank caught up with my humor the water started to melt the snow. The first two trips to the sink from the bin were worthless, except that I had a sink full of rotting dead oak leaves and tiny little twigs. I emptied out the sink, making sure to feel each batch of goopy leaves for anything hard, as I figured my ring, if it was in the snow, and later on trapped in a pile of dead leaves would resist any hand-based squeezing. Nothing. I got to the end of the bin, tipped the rest into the sink and figured if the detector wasn’t going to help that I would end up simply shoveling the entirety of the front yard into the bin and melting it in my sink. I would win by sheer labor and attrition. So as I stood there, melting the snow and rooting around in the dead oak leaves I saw my ring. It was there. Hallelujah!

I grabbed it, rinsed it off, and cleaned up the rest of the snow, the bin, the sink, the leaves, and tossed the bag of leaves I was collecting into the garbage. I put all my other silly contrivances away and packed the metal detector up for it’s return tomorrow morning back to the rental company. Alls well that ends well. Of course the front of my yard looks like a disaster struck it, there isn’t any beautiful snowpack left, it looks all messy – but at least my ring is back where it belongs, on my finger. There is a new rule, if I am going outside to futz with the ornaments I will wear gloves! That way if I shake my hands, my ring has nowhere to go.

There was no sound more unwanted and seemingly mockingly final than the “tink” sound the ring made as it bounced off of my shoes on it’s random course into the snowbank. I couldn’t have done it, at least not this quickly or conveniently without Rentalex. The price was great, the detector was top-notch, and I’m a much happier fellow now that I have my ring back.

Of course, with all the tramping around I unintentionally made the snowbank into snowpack and I fell a handful of times. Now my legs and hips and back ache. Nothing worth mentioning, except that the heating pad I’m resting on has caught a certain cats notice and I am now sandwiched between a blazing hot heating pad and a rattling boat-motor-purring feline. I look at my ring, and I smile. It was worth it.

Tomorrow morning I have to remember to get up extra early and drop off the detector. It’s a neat device, but I’m glad it’s rentable, as it’s the kind of thing you need very dearly once or twice and spending a huge wad on it seems like such a waste. Hooray for tool libraries and tool rental shops like Rentalex! They saved my day! 🙂