MUDGE’s Musings
Tags: cell phone, lost and found, Flanders and Swann
Skipped a day for the first time in this brief string, yesterday. Needed to get some distance from the hammering I took. Got it. So I’m back.
Many of us are creatures of habit. It’s part and parcel of curmudgeonhood. A place for everything, and everything in its place, and all that.
So, my personal cell phone went missing. Found it missing (a wonderful contradiction in terms first highlighted for me years ago by Flanders and Swann) as I unstrapped my daily armor upon my return home from HCA.
I remembered pulling it out of my pocket shortly before departing work, and reading the text message from the traffic service, and I remembered all too vividly later that I was impatient about cramming it back in my pocket. It didn’t go very deep, but I let it pass.
So when it was missing, first thing I did was head back out to the car: did I have it near the opening of the pocket, and did it slip out during the 75-minute Moby Dick on wheels session? Didn’t see it there. So, perhaps it fell out of my pocket as I sat at my desk. Maybe someone found it there. Maybe it’s already in use dialing Bulgaria. I scrambled to find a customer service number for my cell carrier (funny, *611 doesn’t work without the phone!), ended up calling information on my land line (another 75-cents down the drain) and suspended my service immediately.
Then ensued a conversation with the customer service person regarding my options, which turn out to be manifold. I have been paying several $ per month for insurance on the thing, having lost a couple (1. back seat of a taxi; 2. plopped into a commode — a distressingly common fate for cell phones I found out) through the years. So there’s that replacement, less a $50 deductible, of whatever model would be comparable. Also, I’d heard from the carrier a week ago or so, reminding me that my 2-year commitment is up and offering some choices, and this agent re-reminded me of same. Sigh. What I really wanted at this financially constrained time (and, another element of my curmudgeonhood, when are the times NOT financially constrained?) was to go to the office in the morning and find my phone.
So I got back to the office this a.m., after a distressed night (what a bother! Is someone plundering my contact list — for what exactly? etc.) and of course did not find the phone in my cube. Sigh. So, I called Security, reported it missing so that they would be on notice if I had to file a police report (required I was told if I wanted to replace the phone via insurance), contacted the department’s assistant who left word with Housekeeping, and stewed. It’s just a phone, a commodity, hardly state of the art two years ago when new, but I like it. Sigh.
Then, I got an idea. Grabbed my car keys, and took a look again, this time in bright sunshine, as compared to the fog of distress at 6PM the evening before. Crawled onto the floor in the back seat, and there, wedged into a corner and thus hiding from my hurried foggy on-tilt search before, was the phone! Whew! So, called the carrier to get service reinstated (can I help you with anything else today sir? Thanks, no! [I really like this phone, and don’t feel like spending more for a new one without a lot more analysis of my instrument and carrier options]), called Security and our assistant to stand down, let my lovely spouse know. What a lot of Sturm und Drang for no achievement whatsoever. Except grist for another post, I guess. Sigh.
Of course, the episode of the phone was just one hammer-tap last evening. A couple of others, probably of greater long term import hit at roughly the same time. Sigh. Maybe those will age gracefully as the phone incident turned out to, and we can discuss at leisure, or not.
Thanks,
–MUDGE
Powered by Qumana
Left-handed Complement 