How to Lose Your Cell Phone

When my Mom was my age, the phone was an oblong, beige, plastic machine that hung on the wall in our family room. When it rang, everyone knew where it was and you simply picked up the receiver off the large hook and said hello. Rod wanted me to join him and Pekah our Boston terrier for a walk Sunday afternoon but suggested I might want to grab my cell phone on the way out. That is when I realized, like you probably have at some time, that I had no idea where my cell phone was. I looked in the last place I had used it to look up something on the internet, in my purse, no luck. Rod doesn’t like to waste time looking for things so he quickly called my phone and to our relief it rang quite loudly somewhere there in the family room where we stood. I tuned my ear to the sound and realized that it was quite close. Turning, I listened for the next ring but the sound seemed to be coming from somewhere else in the room. I spun from side to side trying to zero in on the sound. We lifted up couch cushions, but to no avail, my voicemail greeting soon echoed from his phone. We grabbed a flashlight and looked under the couch before we tried again, my battery has been running out lately so I didn’t want to risk it going dead before I found the phone. Finally he convinced me to let him call it again. I stood in the middle of the room determined to focus this time on the direction of the sound, concentrating hard. Sure enough it was definitely behind me. I turned toward the sound only to have the sound appear to echo off another wall. I was beginning to doubt my sanity when Rod said, “Oh there it is” and pointed to my back pocket. Every time I turned toward the sound, it had moved behind me again. Now we know why those first wall phones were too big to fit in our pockets! Lin Willett May 20th 2012