Would You like fries with that ring?
Dumpster diving anyone? Yep that was the latest ring search. I received a phone call from a young lady who had just lost her ring. She wanted to know if I could help her find it. Of course I would, and I wanted her to tell me the story.
She had been at a local McDonald’s enjoying a glass of water with her friends. She had taken her silver ring off and had placed it over the straw that was in a clear plastic cup. Engrossed in her conversation, and half looking at the ring she wondered if she could push the ring into the cup over the straw. Somehow see was distracted and sort of forgot about the ring halfway into the cup. A few minutes later ready to leave, she well, left. And being the neat person that she is she put her cup into the trash bag on the way out.
A while later, she thought about the ring and to her horror, it was gone. She was able to remember that she had put the ring nearly into the cup and must have thrown it away. AAHHHHHHH. She has a very nice friend who remembered an add that I ran on craigslist for “TheRingFinders”, and that I searched for lost rings. They were able to track down the add and gave me a call.
It was kind of funny because she wanted to know if I could find a ring in a dumpster. I told her that unfortunately for me, I had experience with dumpster diving and that I would be happy to do the search.
Most of my searches seem to be hours from home, so this one being only ten minutes away was quite a treat. I arrived at McDonald’s in Selah, Washington and met them out at the dumpster. After the introductions the search was on. (I had her get permission from the manager to go through their trash prior to leaving for the hunt).
So in the massive dumpster, we found 8-10 trash bags full of, well, trash. So gloves on hands, we started to pull those bags out of the dumpster and lay them out on the ground. I fired up my metal detector and started going over the bags. I received the typical foil signals from all of the ketchup packets, and then the high tones of pop cans and other metal objects, but no ring.
So it was now time for hand to hand combat. It is at this point I was wondering what was going to be in the trash bags. It pretty much was what you are thinking, just room temperature and all squishy. An observation. I must say that most people finish all their meals, and that McDonald’s is losing millions on wasted ketchup. If you ever need a few hundred little ketchup packs then I have a secret spot for you, AND if you find the right bags, the ones from the kitchen you can have loads of French fries and a few old burgers as a bonus. But I digress.
Well, we were pawing through mounds of squishy cold garbage and each handful was placed under the metal detector. No ring. We spent what seemed like six years going through garbage, and the bad news was that we were running out of the good bags. I was starting to eye some of the remaining fries, when Finally, all the bags had been checked. I was crying because well, you know, I did not find the ring, and everyone looked so disappointed, and the fact that just a few moments earlier after avoiding any major gooey blobs of who knows what, a blob had flown into my left eye, which I did not want to wipe with my hands full of who knows what.
I was stunned we had not found the ring, and started actually thinking about going through the pile again, which would have required ME climbing into the dumpster. My helpers were all in there by now, but I have standards. No not really, I don’t have standards… we had managed to stay out of the container.
Part of being a good ring FINDER, is thinking, so I remember the ring loser saying that she had information from a reliable source in the store that ALL the garbage bags were out here in the dumpster. That sounded to final to me, so I asked the young lady who had lost the ring to go back into the store and grab the plastic trash bag from the container she dropped her cup into. My reasoning is that when I worked at McDonald’s, if the bag wasn’t full, I did not take it out to dump.
She was not to impressed with my idea, but after some brow beating, she marched in there and made off with the bag.
This now the final bag, the tension was palpable. Bit by bit, and fry by fry we started to go through the trash bag. Every bit of trash was slowly searched until we were halfway through the bag. Then just as suddenly as the blob went into my eye, I saw the ring. Tucked down deep in a pile of French fries. I slipped the ring over a sliver of fries and lifted it out of the bag, to the shouting of joy. We DON’T HAVE TO SEARCH THROUGH THE TRASH ANY LONGER.
The ring loser, now all smiles, was very happy to see her very special ring back. It was her 16th birthday ring, with her first diamonds. A gift from her mother.
Is this a great hobbie or what. It was a very special moment. Thanks for calling me to do the search, and I think I have to go take a shower now.
If you have lost your ring in Yakima, or Selah or anywhere NOT in the trash at McDonald’s (just kidding) give me a call.
