SMARTPHONE LOST AND FOUND

A smartphone is a big connection to the world for many people. It’s a lifeline during quarantine.

Losing one during this coronavirus shutdown seems like losing more than just a phone.

From one loser to another, how can we recover our phone self esteem?

This loser, yours truly, lost a phone.

As a vigilant observer of the human condition, I noticed a suspicious looking character on my last day on the Paris Metro.

He looked like a grab and go guy, and he was looking at my wife’s backpack.

While I tried to convince her to give me her pack, the train pulled into a station and the guy got out.

With my phone.

All of my nagging and warning about protecting stuff in crowds went out the window.

Smartphone Loser?

When the self-appointed expert on security breaks down, authority loses meaning.

“Be careful with your phone,” I said.

“Where’s your phone?” was the response I got.

We made the calls and cut service to the lost unit.

I spent the next three weeks looking at my empty hand and saying things like, “I don’t need to charge my phone today.”

Bull Mountain Park Smartphone

My local park, walking distance from the front door, feels like a personal oasis. Ten minutes away and I’m standing in the woods with no houses in sight.

There’s the outdoor structure, the trails, the meadow, benches; and there’s the young mother carrying a baby into the woods.

I didn’t like the looks of that. Baby stealer? Where’s the stroller for the wood chip trails?

She walked downhill on the left side and made a right turn at the tree line.

My self-appointed park ranger/wife asked if she was lost. The young mom wasn’t lost, but she’d lost her smartphone. Someone texted her and said they found it and left it on a bench.

Lost phone talk struck home. She was going to find her phone if I had anything to do with it. Call it a feeling, but I’ve found things that were given up for lost before. Just not my phone.

We left the lady and her baby and drifted down the side trail before cutting back to the main branch with rest benches.

One Smart Bench

The first bench we saw had a phone sitting there. We found the phone. In a moment of transferred celebration for the lady, I got a whiff of what it must feel like to recover a lost phone. I was soooo happy, even if it wasn’t mine.

The lost phone lady we’d met was going to be the real kind of happy, if she was still in the park. So I hustled up the trail with her phone to find her.

I pushed it since I was on a finding roll. Her car was still there, but not her and the baby, so I headed toward a trail on the other side of the park.

A woman with a dog came out of the woods. I asked if she’d seen a woman with a baby. She had.

The phone lady walked out. She was talking on another phone. I waved her phone, smiled, pointed to it. She nodded, ended her call, took her phone and said thank you.

If the roles had been reversed, I would have dropped to my knees and thanked the Smartphone gods for their mercy, and showered the finder with gratitude.

But, whatever, right? She was a busy person who continued her busy day.

How To Say Thank you

How many times have you thanked someone profusely only to hear, “Hey, no big deal.”

That’s how I usually do a thank you. I’d rather add to much than too little.

If the pickpocket on the subway had said, “Excuse me, mister, but your phone is visible and it’s a target for pickpockets like me, but not today,” I’d still be thanking him.

For example, one in my Paris group was surrounded by three teen girls on the Metro. They talked, he talked, until a stranger said, “Mister, these girls are pickpockets. Two of them talk while one wearing a pack in front slips her hand underneath.”

My guy stepped away, the girls gave a shrug and moved on. The warning saved the day and got the sort of thanks usually reserved for the end of WWII in France. That’s the sort of thanks I would have given my pickpocket, but he picked me instead. So f that guy.

Adding up smartphone incidents to date, I’m one for two: Lost one, and found one.

I call it breaking even on my scorecard, redemption and revenge on my Paris Pickpocket, and now I’ll have a croissant, please.

I’ve finally moved on.