If you see an old person doing something, that’s usually a good sign you should do it too. Old people have been around for a long time, so they’ve figured out what things are worth doing.
That’s why you never see old people jumping. Old people have learned that lesson–there’s no money to be made in jumping around everywhere, so why bother?
But you do see old people doing using metal detectors. You can find a lot of metal on the ground, and some of it’s probably worth money.
Youth is fleeting, so you might as well start acting old now. That’s why I decided to buy myself a metal detector.
If you want to get into metal detecting, it’s important to know the market. A lot of people will try to sell you a fake one, which is usually a broom with a radio taped to it. But it can be hard to spot that kind of thing if you’re a first-time buyer.
You’ll also need a good shovel. If you detect some metal, you don’t want to be the guy asking every kid jumping around the beach if you can borrow their shovel. This either gets you thrown off the beach or stuck splitting all the metal you found with some kid.
A thing people don’t think of is that metal detectors are good for meeting women. Because if you’re at a loud bar and you tell a girl you’re a “detector,” she might mishear you and think you’re a detective. And that’s a pretty alluring job.
Most people think you’ll find treasure and or an old bullet that killed a man in some war. But usually you just find bottle caps. These can still be useful though, because you can leave them all over the floor at your house so people think you’re a real partier.
If you bring up your metal detector in an interview, and the interviewer asks if you’ve found anything cool, I’ve found it’s best to just lie and say yes. And if they ask what cool thing you’ve found, say you’re not at liberty to discuss that and wink. This can give off a mysterious vibe which makes you attractive to potential employers.
You might think you can use your metal detector wherever you want, and anything it detects is yours. This isn’t true. You can pretty much only use it at the beach or in a field. If you start detecting cash registers at the liquor store, you can’t claim all the coins inside. And if you metal detect a cop’s gun, you aren’t allowed to take it and fire off a few shots.
Sometimes you’ll find a bunch of random metal pieces, and you’ll think you can use them to build something, like a robot or a better metal detector. But you have to be pretty good at thinking to do those kinds of things, so I don’t bother.
Now that I have a metal detector, I’ve been thinking about other detectors that I’d want. Because when it comes down to it, there are so many better things to find than metal. Here are my ideas. Scientists, get on it.
—
Winning Scratch Off Detector
Like most of you, I have a strict line item in my budget for scratch off tickets. If I had a detector that could pick out the winning ones, I’d save a lot of money. I’d also save a lot of time scratching. Time I could spend buying more winners.
—
Prank Metal Detector
This would be like a regular metal detector, but it beeps whenever it feels like it. I’d like to give this one to one of my metal detecting rivals and watch them dig for nothing.
—
Bat Detector
Do you find yourself in caves very often? If you’re bad at using maps like me, the answer is yes. And everyone knows that caves are filled with bats. Bats are blind, so you might think you have an advantage over them. You might think you can punch them out of the air.
But what you’re forgetting is that caves are dark, and bats don’t need to see anyway because they have magic ears that use sonar. They know right where you are and can swoop in on you. With a bat detector, I’d at least be on equal footing with them next time I’m lost in a cave.
—
Friendly Stranger Detector
You’d think having a metal detector would make it impossible to lose your keys because keys are made of metal. But when you’re cheap like me and bought the plastic keys, you’ll find yourself losing them almost every day.
I’ve been missing my keys for a month now and I have to hitchhike everywhere. And unfortunately, there’s no app that gives you the ratings on the people who’ll pick up a hitchhiker. A friendly stranger detector would make it easier for me to pick a good hitchhikee. I can’t count how many times I’ve asked for ride to the bar and ended up in some guy’s torture cellar.
—
Special Blood Alcohol Content Detector
This one is a lot like the fake metal detector because it doesn’t work the way you’d expect. No matter how hammered you are, it makes you blow a 0.0.
This would be useful because a lot of the people who pick me up when I’m hitchhiking are drunk. And then when they get pulled over and arrested, I’m left stranded on the side of the road. And the cops won’t give you a ride in their car unless you commit a crime.
—
Bounty Hunter Detector
I’m always getting bounty hunters called on me, and I’m not sure why. Probably because of all that bail I’m behind on. I think it’d be useful to have a detector that lets me know when a bounty hunter is near me so I can high tail it out there.
If anything it would make things more fair, because with how often I come across bounty hunters it feels like they have a detector for me.
—
Ripe Avocado Detector
I’m sick of peeling an avocado and realizing I was too late.
