I know what my son, Austin, was probably thinking a few years ago: it’s time to revoke the old man’s iPhone privileges.
For the second time in two weeks, he witnessed me losing my iPhone, both times during Indianapolis-related trips.
The first occurrence was at a downtown restaurant. The booth was cramped so I put the phone on top of the napkin dispenser.
After paying the bill, we walked through rain toward our distant parking garage. I reached into my coat for my phone. It was not there.
Suddenly the symptoms of nomophobia, or the fear of being out of mobile phone contact, sunk in: anxiety, respiratory alterations, trembling, perspiration, agitation, disorientation. That or it was gas.
“We have to run.”
“What?”
“The phone! I left it at the restaurant.”
I raced for the restaurant. I hoped it was where I had left it. On the napkin dispenser.
TIME reports that a restaurant is one of the top 10 places where people lose their phones. There is an 80 to 95 percent recovery rate.
Just how many people did I bump off the rain-soaked sidewalks? Just how many multiple-car pileups did I cause while blindly racing through wet intersections? I heard sirens.
I envisioned myself as that high-octane Liam Neeson character in those Taken thrillers – only I was way more intense. After all, my cell phone was missing. All Liam had to worry about was lost loved ones. Sorry, Liam, but s&*^ happens.
I entered the restaurant, panting, sweating.
The hostess asked, “How many are in your party?” but I was already past her, reaching the booth and seeing my iPhone still on the napkin dispenser. Feeling my iPhone again in my hands brought a great surge of relief, joy, and sense of security. I nearly wept. Nomophobia no more.
“Oh good, you found it,” a vaguely familiar male voice said behind me. I turned, not recognizing the person’s face at first.
“Oh, hi, Austin. What are you doing in Indianapolis?”
Two weeks later: Lost iPhone Redux. We were a few miles outside Martinsville, heading north, when I asked Austin, “Do you see my phone?”
I pulled over in a panic and practically ransacked the car.
No phone.
Hello, nomophobia, my old friend.
“I saw you put it in your back pocket when we left Starbucks,” he said.
I remembered doing that, then I remembered what I had done next: I had put the iPhone on the car roof before ducking into the backseat for something.
We U-turned to Starbucks. Austin went inside. I scanned the entire parking lot. The phone was clearly missing – a.k.a. stolen! Everyone was a suspect. I stared at the phones they carried. Anyone. It could be anyone. A sense of vigilantism overtook me. I saw a woman talking on an iPhone in a parked minivan – the exact spot where my car had been parked earlier. It was my phone. It had to be. My inner Charles Bronson surfaced. iPhone Death Wish 2. I closed in, glancing sideways for a loose brick or lead pipe. She glanced at me nervously, guilty-like. Unfortunately, I realized her phone’s protective case was pink. My OtterBox was black.
Austin stepped from Starbucks, shrugging. I jogged to the busy highway, crossed the southbound lanes and searched the winter-browned grass in the littered median. It was below freezing. I was coatless.
TIME reports that people putting their phones on the roofs of cars is also one of the top 10 ways people lose their phones. The recovery rate is somewhere between 25 and 70 percent. I dreaded contacting my employer. I didn’t want to admit to foolishly putting the company phone on the car roof before driving. I used Austin’s phone to report my lost phone.
“Go ahead, release the satellite beams that destroy the contents of my phone before the Russians get to it,” I dejectedly told the IT person.
Calmly, I was advised to first try the Find iPhone app on my son’s phone. I entered my Apple ID and password. A radar screen appeared, noting our present location at Starbucks. Then another blip appeared, showing the location of my lost (no, make that found!) iPhone, only 3/10 of a mile away on, or along, U.S. 37.
It took about 20 minutes of searching on foot to finally find my phone on the roadside, unscathed. I whooped and hollered, did a little roadside victory jig. Ecstatic to be reunited with my iPhone, I returned to my car and drove north, singing happily to myself. A few miles later, I looked at the empty passenger seat. “Austin?”
U-turn.
Just kidding – I did not forget my son on the side of the road. I’m not a monster. But even if I had, at least I still had my cell phone.
Email Scott at scottsaalman@gmail.com.