The Saga of the Lost Phone

This blog has run the gambit. It has had many identities over the years, but for good reason. My interests have changed, therefore my writing has followed suit. It's been about retirement, sharing bits of wisdom, day trips to small Southern towns, tablescaping, flea market adventures and much more. Recently I changed it to reporting small happenings and gossip in the small town of Park Place, the place of my books, a fictional Van Wyck, but the lost phone saga is not fiction and I'm sure it will never be replicated. Here it is.

My youngest daughter, a fellow democrat, is on vacation with some friends in Mexico waiting for the wall to be built so she won't have to come back home. Just kidding, but probably more serious than we know. But of course, she wants her family to join her, one of which I'm feeding and carpooling while she's gone.

Gen is fourteen, going on fifteen. I'm also carpooling the children of a neighbor, who is also in said Mexico waiting for the same wall. One of them is Gregory, Genevieve's age.  Monday, on the way home from picking them up at school, I told Gen that she had a physical therapy appointment and when she acted like she doubted it, I whipped out my phone to show her the email message from her mom, like, uh, grandmas make these things up. I was driving and that's the last time I saw my phone. Having not charged it the night before, I only had about 20% charge left, and everybody knows when it says that, it means it's going to leave you high and dry.

After I delivered Gregory home, I brought Gen back to my house for a few minutes before we left for the appointment. When we got back in the car, I noticed I didn't have my phone. We tried ringing it inside and outside the house, but no luck. It had to be in the house or the car, right? So we went on to the appointment. I would find it when I got home.

Searched everywhere, called it time and again. It was ringing but we couldn't hear it. So at this point, I decided I would be smart like my smart phone is supposed to be, so I logged into my iTunes account and asked it to Locate my Phone. The message it gave told me it wasn't charged. So much for smart.  I've worried about that six-hundred dollar phone more than you should ever worry about a material thing, but I do love my phone! It's also new. 

Meanwhile I got out my old iPhone and charged it up, thinking I may have to resurrect it and switch back to it. Last night I decided to give the Locate My Phone feature one more try. Yay! It looked like it was working this time and zeroing in on a spot on the corner of Steele Hill and VW Road on  the map right before my eyes. My house, it must be here! Then I heard a ping and was so happy until I looked around and found the pinging coming from my old phone that I had just charged. The read-out said "found phone" and that phone wasn't even lost! I went back to the Apple site and tried to pull up my new phone, but it only shows that I own the old phone. I may or may not have remembered to register the new phone on Apple when I got it. Ouch. But I had the box it came in! Yay! It had the serial number on it, so I tried to register it thinking there still might be hope and it would still have a charge since I hadn't used it. I think positive, usually. But aack! Once again, no luck. After the serial number, it wanted an agreement number from the agreement papers where I bought it. Oh, did I ever tell you how unorganized I am? Probably not and I couldn't find it.

So-o-o, this morning I went to Comporium where I purchased the phone and just knew they would have a copy of the agreement number. Wrong! But I don't think she was looking hard. She had a very hard time following along with my story, and she had a neat desk, looked very organized and looked at me sort of condescending, like I was supposed to know to keep those sorts of things.

I came home all blue, rejected and dejected from Comporium. When I pulled in the driveway, Henry walked out of the house to meet me. My phone had been found! He was excited too, because of the six-hundred dollars I'm sure. Where, I asked, feeling a little elated for the first time in two days, actually three days if you count Monday.

It was at the high school and had been turned in by a boy who found it in his book bag.

My thoughts went to Gregory! But how?

Can't you just see this in slow motion. 

Genevieve in front seat, Gregory in back seat.

Book bag on floor. 

Gregory opens book bag to get out his own phone, leaves it open. 

Genevieve has my phone, reads email and lays phone on console.

Brakes applied.

Out of all the places phone could go, it tumbles into book bag.

Gregory closes book bag and gets out of car.

Book bag is left by back door away from hearing ears as we try calling it.

It stays in dark book bag overnight and all next day because there was no school because of election day; then overnight again.

Gregory takes book bag to school this morning, opens it. Hey, what's this phone doing in here?

Takes to office. Smart lady in office charges it and calls the last number called.

Voila! I have my phone back. I did feel slightly unpopular when I checked my messages. Not a single one.

I can sometimes go days without using my phone, but with my daughter in Mexico waiting for the wall to be built and thinking that Gen would need me to put on my superwoman cape to run to her rescue at sometime or another, I went a little crazy with the lost phone. Can you tell?

But the really, really fun part is when I picked up Gregory today at school. I told him I'd found my phone. He said, where did you find it? I said, here at the high school. Some boy found it in his book bag. He turned to me with a look of shock on his face and said in his cute little British accent, "that was me!" Kids! You gotta love 'em!

At least this was a short story and not a book.

The end.