Found It!

Norm pushed his hat back on his head and leaned his metal detector against the apple tree in the backyard. "Well, Stephen," he said, "I wish I could tell you where your ring is, but I can tell you where it isn't, and that's in your back yard."

I had found Norm through The Ringfinders website, calling him Monday morning and arranging for him to come by that afternoon. He was fully kitted out with three different metal detectors in a variety of sizes, and casually displayed a deep pool of knowledge and experience. When I told him how I had lost my wedding band while cleaning eavestroughs and thought it might be on the lawn or in the garden, he glanced down and shook his head.

"It's not on your lawn," he stated, pulling his own ring from his finger and tossing it haphazardly onto the grass. "Look," he pointed. Sure enough, his ring was plainly visible from over five feet away. He similarly discounted the idea that it might have washed away down the spout, believing the rain we'd had was nowhere near heavy enough to move even a small ring that far.

Norm interrogated me thoroughly, asking how long I had been outside (3-4 hours), what hand I wore my ring on (left), precisely where I had been working and where I stowed my ladder. He dropped his ring on the garage pad and demonstrated how loud a ping it made, as well as how far it might roll. He also suggested that if the ring came off in the glove it might well have been catapulted several feet from me. 

90 minutes later, he was so confident that the ring was not outside, I took heart that the ring must be in the house as he suggested.  After paying him his entirely reasonable fee, I checked a handful of possibilities in the house. 

I had rushed in to grab some insecticides after Audrey discovered an incredibly gnarly ant's nest in the trunk of our mountain ash, and might have taken my gloves off in front of that closet or right by the back door, but nothing turned up there. Norm had also suggested that the ring might fallen from the glove into the pocket of my cargo shorts, so maybe it fell out while I was stretching my back in the recliner, but upending that chair revealed nothing.

Norm suggested giving it a day or two before trying to retrace my steps, but I still checked the bedroom, the kitchen and the garage before heeding his advice. The week night schedule was fairly full, but I figured Audrey and I could make a proper attempt sometime on the long weekend.

I got up early on Saturday to smoke a brisket for the lads coming over that evening to continue our Call of Cthulhu campaign, the first time in 2024 with all five players in attendance. It was the first warm weekend day of the summer, so we enjoyed an hour or two of patio time before dinner, drinking beers and catching up, and they commiserated with me over the loss of my ring, which I suggested we were likely to find when we finally move out.

After supper, the lads moved the gaming table away from the basement bookshelves while I stowed the leftover brisket. With everyone at the table, but before we began gaming, I read aloud the brilliant "Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers", a Seussian version of the macabre Lovecraft tale that Glory had given me for Christmas.

Midway through the tale, at about five after seven, Jeff, seated at the end of the table by the shelves said, "hey Steve, what's the reward for your ring again?"

I looked up from my book and saw him holding it aloft with a grin my dad might have described as coprophagous. I was completely gobsmacked, but luckily Earl had the presence of mind to snap a picture capturing Jeff's obvious joy at ending my misery.

He had just seen it lying on the carpet near where he was sitting, which suggested it must have been flung or rolled from the foot of the stairs, but beyond that I have no idea how or when it arrived at that space. I thanked Jeff profusely, throwing in a shot of exquisite reposado and two Cthulhu coins with my gratitude.

I toyed with the idea of waiting to see how long before Audrey noticed the ring had returned to my finger, but when Jeff had to leave early I came clean so she could thank him as well (and save me from a range of torments at her hands).

The next day I texted Norm to let him know that the ring had been found: