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The Big Dig

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Michelle’s latest column talks a bit about me, her wedding ring, and lots of snow. This is how she writes it:

My husband thinks he’s a scientist.

In many ways he is. Sean is a great problem-solver. He develops hypotheses and uses deductive reasoning. When it comes to fruit-branded computer operating systems, he is a genius. But he really put his science skills to the test this weekend. We’re talking CSI: Overland Park, here.

I was standing by my car, waving goodbye to a family member after a gathering. It was cold; my fingers were shrunken and numb. And with a wave of my hand, my wedding band flew off my finger. It bounced off the roof of the car — PLING! — and then: silence. My Spidey-sense hearing, which helps offset my terrible vision, heard nothing that would help me locate the ring’s resting place. Which means it went to the worst place it could go: the snow.

Many dear, wonderful family members and friends poured out of the house brandishing flashlights. I could hear them murmuring to each other about bad luck. Car beams flooded the yard with blue-tinted, high-intensity light. But our efforts rang hollow. No ring turned up for more than an hour, and it was getting colder. Sean convinced me we could find it in the morning.

After a sleepless night, we pumped ourselves full of hot drinks and bundled up. Sean piled supplies in the back of his car: rakes, stakes, string.

When we got to his cousin’s street, aka The Crime Scene, Sean went all forensic archaeologist on me. He explained the grid system he was going to create with the stakes, marking off sections of snow as he sifted through them. He laid the stakes on the ground with a little bounce in his step, and I realized: He’s enjoying this.

Sean likes a challenge. He offers to help people move, because to him, packing the U-Haul is a giant, fun puzzle, a spatial relations test on which he knows he can get an A. I am not like this.

I admit that the longer we’re married, the more skeptical I am when he decides to “play” scientist. Things that once worked become irreparably broken. Messes are often made. I have feared for his life when electricity was involved. And now, here I am, raking snow, square by square, to find a needle in a haystack.

I looked for two hours, my jeans wet at the knees where I’d crawled on the ground. With a shaking voice and a snotty nose, I insisted that we suck it up and find someone with a metal detector. Or buy a metal detector. Or buy a new ring. The cold was getting the better of me.

Sean took me by the shoulders, smiled, and said, “Go home. Have some hot tea. I’ll find it.” So I did.

About that time, family and friends were asking for intercessions on my behalf at Sunday morning services at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood. To anyone who sent out a prayer that morning, thank you.

Whether it was the prayers or the methodical deconstruction of a neighbor’s yard, it worked: Sean’s search was a success. And my faith in his scientific experiments has come full circle, just like the ring around my finger.

The original story is here until it disappears into the archives.

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