Mental Detector

Recently one of my childhood dreams has been realized. No not winning Miss America, or being a NY Times bestselling author, better, I bought a metal detector!  I have always wanted one. As a kid I would watch men with metal detectors combing up and down the State beach in the town of Mashee on Cape Cod. I wanted a metal detector. I imagined all of the treasures; gold, diamonds, nickels, all hidden right below the surface, waiting to be discovered. Fast forward about 36 years I was sitting in front of my computer. I had just reached an unexpected high price for an item I was selling on EBAY. Before I could talk myself out of it I jumped on Amazon.com and bought myself a metal detector.

The machine came about two weeks ago. I am still learning how to use the controls and perfect the techniques. First I went out to my back yard and dug a hole every time the thing beeped. I didn’t find anything but I did ruin what grass was left during this dry Spring. Don’t tell my husband I am blaming grubs and moles. The kids and I did take the metal detector to our local beach where I found my first big item. A QUARTER! The machine beeped .25; I bent down, dug through the sand for 2 seconds and voila! Quarter! I was hooked, I love free money.  In about 30 minutes we found 36 cents. Then Dylan went back into the car to play his DS and Alice and I continued to the lacrosse field. The field is turf, but there is a strip of real ground all the way around where the parents and players stand. Alice and I found 2 quarters, a big plastic ball, 3 lacrosse balls and about 24 mouth guards of assorted colors. We only took the money.  So our first daily total was an amazing 86 CENTS! I would have found much more if I went alone. The kids lost interest when they realized that I wasn’t giving them the money. I told them to be fair the first 165.00 goes to paying for the machine then I will split the money with them.

What? That’s fair and it will happen while they are still living at home. All I need is one gold earring to pay for the machine. Well I would have if Alice didn’t keep making deposits instead of withdrawals.  Alice realized a day or two after the trip to the beach and field that she had lost her precious tooth necklace, with tooth. She was wearing a little plastic tooth around her neck that was holding her tooth that she lost over the weekend. She saved it for school so she could get a tooth necklace. Then sadly the necklace fell off as we searched for lost items.

I spent Friday night, Good Friday, no so good, walking around the medium sized -beach and large field being followed by a screaming crying child, looking for a little white plastic tooth the size of a nickel on a green plastic string.  Do you know how many white things there are on a green plastic turf field? Apparently more than there are stars in the sky.  I know because I searched square by square across a regulation sized field looking at them. After 2 hours or searching, my daughter sobbing most of the time tagging along behind me, I went back to the beach and managed to find the empty string. Sadly I cannot detect or dig up plastic. Isn’t the irony staggering?

I did stop at the grocery store on the way home to pick out a piece of candy. What? I know that’s a bad parenting move, but our grocery store is one of the few in our state that sells booze.

On a side note I used the metal detector in the side yard at the kid’s school. Every year for about the last 50 or so the town has been holding a huge fair. I was bound to find something. After 45 minutes I found a quarter. We are at over a dollar! Too bad that last night Alice confessed that she was wearing one of my silver bracelets with the aquamarine stone and yes! She lost it out on the side yard. It cost me a $120.00 bracelet to find a quarter. I am going to stop bringing the kids!