Steve, a lot of times when people loose a ring or something, they don't necessarily know where/when it was lost. They just ....... at some point during the day, or when they arrive home, realize "oh my gosh, my ring is gone". You can see this illistrated by surfing the craigslist lost and found. There, you will sometimes see people posting a lost jewelry item, and they list off the 10 places they were that day, hoping that someone might read their ad, and find it. You know, like "I was at the such & such mall, then I walked down these 5 streets, then I went to this & such restaurant, blah blah blah"
Yes, now and then some people distinctly see the ring fly off their hand, when they're pitching frisbee or playing volleyball. Or they feel it slip off in waist deep water as they're frolicking around. In those cases, they'd have a pretty concise area as to where it landed.
But even in those cases of where they can hone in a spot where it was lost, you'd be surprised at how many people, who are not in this hobby, just have no idea of calling a hobbyist in to find it. It just doesn't occur to them a lot of times. And they have no idea of the "hiding action" of sand, and just assume that when the tide pulls out, they can walk out at low tide, and simply see it there, so they assume the next passerby will pick it up or something. It's only hobbyists like us that know the obscuring action of sand, and the benefit/potential of md'ing.
I have offered my services to many people (when responding to CL L&F ads) offering my service to go look on the beach for them. And the answers are sometimes silly. Like: No, we already looked, when we raced back to the beach later that day, to look where our beach blanket had been. It wasn't there. So we ran the ad because we figured someone else passing by saw it after we left", etc... You see? they can't envision that it's still there, buried in the sand. They just don't know the gravity/loose sand trick, like an md'r would know it.
And as for returning class rings, there are SCORES of stories like yours. Even some scary ones. I knew a guy who called the owner of a class ring he found, after he tracked down a name and phone #. He only got a voice-mail, so he left a message on their machine saying "I have your ring here, give me a call, so we can arrange to get it back to you". That night, guess who showed up at his door during the family's dinner? The POLICE! Yup, you see, sometimes when someone looses a ring, they think perhaps it was stolen. Like, perhaps they left it on the night stand in the hotel, and the maid must've stolen it! (w/o realizing that they really lost it on the beach). Or they left it on the sink in the public bathroom when they went to wash their hands (they think, but again, perhaps just lost on the beach). And in THEIR mind, the next person who comes in to that bathroom, and picks up, and keeps their ring, has "stolen" it.
For these reasons, there are a lot of md'rs, who don't even make an attempt to return found class rings. I could go on and on with similar stories. And as for those who just assume you're a nut case and hang up on you, this is probably because of the same reason you hang up on total strangers who call you right? You just assume it's a solicitation, etc... I had that happen to me, where ........ the class ring I'd found turned out to be a fellow who had died in the vietnam war (thus, the ring was on the beach for over 35 yrs., before I found it). When I found out his parents and siblings contacts, I got hold of them. But all they would say is, that I was mistaken, and that this person had been passed away for 35+ yrs. ago, and for me to "get a life and get lost". I didn't even try to call back a second time. I just kept it.
It's already bad enough.
