As I Was Saying....Or, Only Pirates Have Treasure Maps

Last thing I remember it was July and hot. And I was employed, too. Computer problems (we're ambulatory, but limping), four months, one store closing resulting in unemployment, and about a fifty degree downward change in the temperature, and here we go again. My apologies for the hiatus and my thanks to those of you who've expressed your utter at-sea-ness without your regular gum spitting fix. I hope things return to normal--in more ways than one. Unemployment is horrible, of which more on that in the posts to come, I'm sure.

But did you see this storyabout the British tyke who, after manning (boying?) his father's metal detector for about two minutes, found centuries-old gold worth about $4 million? I love it, especially his claim that he wasn't using a map, because "only pirates have treasure maps." Now if I had some distance on the whole unemployment thing I'm sure I could wax poetic (nostalgic?) about how finding a job that pays 1/100 of the boy's find is like hunting treasure with a metal detector (and for that much, how maybe one needs to assume a pirate's mentalityto endure it all; unanswered e-mails, phone calls, and resume dumps--arrrgghhh!). But we'll save all that verbosity for a more reflective time. As I'm forced to live completely in the here and now these days, let's cut to the chase--what is the deal with metal detectors?

Like owning a fire truck, being a garbage man (nice work if you can get it, I assume), or being a staff photographer for Playboy, possessing a metal detector is every boy's dream. But is there anything more pathetic than the sight of a grown man trawling some park expanse with a metal detector? What are you thinking, sir? If nothing more, the Brit kid's find is the exception that proves the rule that outside of loose change, a stray earring (alas, Marcie's, not a long ago, burying-treasure-nearby pirate's), and a pull can top from 1972, you're not going to find treasure in these parts. I realize that angering the vast metal detector aficionado constituency is not the best move for business as I plunge back into the world of blogging, but somebody has to forcefully tap these guys on the shoulder and say, un-unh, try collecting Star Wars trinkets.

My one and only experience with metal detectors is, thankfully, second hand. In the glorious aftermath of the Cleveland Browns' cathartic double overtime playoff victory over the New York Jets after the 1986 season (yes, kid, there was a time when the idea of playoff football in Cleveland made more sense than buying, and actually using, a metal detector) my buddies and I ran outside into January's cold to jubilantly release about five hours of tension by having a snowball fight in our friend's front yard. Well, after the elation subsided, said friend realized that his beloved college ring was missing. Victory celebration soon turned into what-the-hell-am-I-doing kicking over patches of snow looking for a ring (I love my friends, but really, turning the ultimate male-bonding experience of football glee into a cold exercise in jewelry hunting was not my idea of fun; more like my idea of Cleveland's ingrained bi-polarness, emphasis on the polar, that day). There are certainly some youthful experiences I missed out on, but at least I can go to my grave satisfied that I've experienced the empathetic rush of telling another guy, "It's just a ring, dude, a symbol; you'll always have the memories of your time in college. No one can, um, fling that away from you."

Well, my friend was not to be swayed by such wisdom. Over the next few wintry weeks we received regular updates on his continued search for the ring, from a counter-intuitive shoveling of his front yard, to, yes, an early spring renting and utilizing of a metal detector. At least my friends are charitable, if somewhat nerdish: I have no doubt that if we were ten, he would have invited us all over for the metal detector party and we would have all regarded it as the single most exciting day in our lives, but as we were 23, he kindly told no one of his metal detection pursuits until well after the fact, and--memory is hazy--a couple beers, I assume. Of course we all could have told him that the metal detector strategy was doomed from inception, but we're good friends and we let the "duh, dude," moment lapse. Of course, had it been in the era of cell phones with easily accessed cameras, and had one of us been fortunate enough to be driving by just as our friend was metal detecting his front yard, well then, the picture would still be infamous and the source of years of extortion revenue.

Come the real thaw a few weeks later, neighbors four doors down and across the street found the ring in their yard and returned it, so the story ends happily ever after. Or as happily as it can for a man who I'm sure still lives in fear that his friends are just waiting for the appropriate time (right now that time for me would be making a speech at his daughter's wedding) to say, "You're a man who once rented a metal detector. How do you sleep at night?"