Detecting a Dummy...beep beep beep.

I find myself in need of a metal detector. I've always thought the people who scoured beaches wearing a headset, waving the stick with a disc on the end of it back and forth, back and forth, over the sand, were dorks at best. What do you think you'll find? An old bottle cap? Not exactly adequate payment for hours of scavenging work. And what do you hope to find? Some poor woman's lost engagement ring? I find that crass, the same way I find crassness in engagement rings on display in pawnshop windows. Somewhere out there is a woman who has a naked finger in order to feed her family. She hopes to rebuy her ring someday, but noooo, some cheapskate goes and buys it out from under her. A pawnshop engagement ring is not a good foundation on which to build a marriage.

Anyway, back to my need of a metal detector. In a supreme display of self-reliance, I put up my own outdoor Christmas display. My dad offered some advice.

"You know the large metal Snoopys? Don't just shove the stakes into the ground. They'll snap. Poke a hole in the ground first with a screwdriver or something."

At least I think he said screwdriver. I found the screwdriver in the toolbox that I didn't even know I had. (Disclaimer: I really shouldn't be writing about this. My dad is a faithful reader of my blog and when he reads this, he'll wonder yet again how it was I managed to get a masters degree.)

So I take the screwdriver out to the front yard. The screwdriver is a really nice one, with interchangeable screw tip thingies.

I plot where I want my hole, and I poke.

I withdraw the screwdriver, and admire my hole. I insert one of the metal Snoopy legs, and go to poke the next hole. There's nothing but dirt on the end of the screwdriver. I must've pushed the tip up into the handle. I pulled off the base of the screw driver and flipped it around, reattaching it. There's the tip.

I poke a new hole, and insert the other Snoopy leg. I tie rope around the back of the yard display, and attach it to a cinderblock. How cool is that. I officially have a cinderblock in my yard.

I go to poke a hole for the next Snoopy display. Again, no screwdriver tip, only caked dirt. 'Well, shit. I must've pushed both ends up into the base of the screwdriver.' I set it aside and planned to take it in later and rinse out the dirt. I got out my yard digger-awl thing and used that to finish my decorating.

Back inside, I let the warm water run over my hands as I picked the dirt from inside the screwdriver shaft. I held the shaft up to the light.

Water dripped onto my face. I wiped that away.

Why can I see the light through the shaft?

The screwdriver attachments were gone. Where'd they...?

I visualized my yard. The Snoopy stakes, and below them lie two poor, unsuspecting screwdriver tips, shivering and freezing in abandoned cold.

I briefly contemplated searching Craigslist for a metal detector, but that's a site where child predators frequent, so I decided against it.

So, if you know of anyone who has a metal detector collecting dust in their attic, I would like to borrow it for five minutes. Thank you.