When her ring fell into the toilet 13 years ago, she thought she'd never see it again. She was wrong.

ROGERS — In a flash, in a flush, the diamond ring slipped off Mary Strand's finger and swirled down the drain.

The Strands frantically dismantled the toilet and searched the pipes, but the ring was gone. A small shiny treasure swept along with the million gallons of wastewater the city of Rogers flushes in an average day.

That should have been the end of the story.

For 13 years, it was.

Until March 2023, when a Metropolitan Council repair crew peered into a malfunctioning machine at the Rogers wastewater treatment plant and saw something sparkle.

"I couldn't believe it," Mary Strand said on Wednesday, standing upwind of the wastewater treatment pond as she held her recovered ring up to a bank of television cameras. Its long journey through the sewers bent and battered the gold band, and a few smaller diamonds were missing from the rest. But the diamonds that remained were as bright as the day her husband David gave it to her as a 33^rd anniversary gift.

It's just a quarter of a mile from the Strands' home where the ring was lost to the Rogers Wastewater Treatment Plant where it was found. Where it was for the 13 years in between is a mystery.

When the Met Council put out the word that a diamond ring had washed up in Rogers, Strand's daughter called her, convinced the ring must be hers. After all, Strand said, how many other people could have flushed a diamond ring down the toilet?

Hundreds of people. At least, hundreds of people called in, from as far away as Tennessee, claiming ownership of the Rogers ring. A jeweler eventually matched the ring to a photo of Mary Strand's ring.

While the Strand family celebrated its return, the Metropolitan Council celebrated a teachable moment. Diamonds are forever, a new advertising campaign reminds us, but sewer systems are not.

The sewers can handle the odd bit of jewelry or a kid's flushed Hot Wheels toy. But please stop flushing diapers. Please stop flushing all those "flushable" wipes that only clog the pipes. There are only three things you should put down a toilet: Number one, number two and toilet paper.

Any other problem you try to flush away becomes a problem for John Tierney, finder of lost rings and mechanical maintenance manager for the Rogers Wastewater Treatment Plant.

"What we do is amazing," said Tierney, of the vital, thankless work that keeps our cities looking good and smelling better. "We do fly under the radar. People don't know what happens when you flush the toilet. Nor, in a lot of cases, do they care. We do care."