Lemondrop

A Parsippany, N.J., wife recently got back the wedding ring her husband accidentally tossed out at the dump, amid about 10 tons of garbage. But this isn't the first time a wedding ring has popped up under "miraculous" circumstances.

If you think about it, the Pericolo family had it easy -- they just gave the garbagemen a description of their trash bag and sent them in to dig around for awhile.

This isn't nearly so impressive as Aleki Taumoepeau, an ecologist who accidentally lost his ring in a New Zealand harbor and found it months later with the help of Google Maps, GPS coordinates and his snorkeling abilities.

Many times, lost wedding rings turn up unexpectedly, like when 3-year-old Ryan Baima was digging around in his backyard in Massachusetts and found two rings that had been lost there 33 years ago, even though several truckloads of dirt recently had been removed from the yard. The rings belonged to Joan Mulligan, who plans on having them repaired just in time for her 50th anniversary.

Sometimes it takes a little investigative work, even if it isn't meant to be investigative work. Stuart George went to a talk on metal detecting, and found the ring he had lost 20 years ago sitting on a tray of found treasures.

And of course, in Murfreesboro, Tenn., cops nabbed the crooks who stole a couple's wedding rings just in time to save the wedding.

It kind of makes successfully sending a bunch of guys into a garbage pile lose its magical charm, although to give the Parsippany sanitation workers credit, this was not their first amazing find -- they also found a set of false teeth for somebody once.

Let's all hope we don't end up dating that guy.