Monday, July 18, 2011

Sometimes, it's hard to be me.

Soooo . . . last Thursday, I went to Old Lady Water Aerobics class, which starts at 9:00am, which is when I've been waking up recently [huh.  I could get used to Funemployment.].  I did manage to wake up a bit early, but then somehow ended up racing from the house carrying my Stephen Colbert tote bag [which is actually the husband's, but which I have appropriated to use as a purse, since my old bag was filled with water due to a water bottle mishap] and my Whole Foods bag that held my towel and water shoes. [Hi, I'm liberal! is what my bags say about me.  Also that I'm an old lady who can't be bothered to get a new purse, because these will do just fine.]

I can't find my lock key, and am too lazy/scattered to purchase a new lock [although, come to think of it, I don't know where the lock is, either], so I just put the bags on a chair in the pool area like I've done before and glided in with all the rest of the class, enjoying the camaraderie and realizing that I probably should move up a couple of class levels [As noted, I am lazy and also out of shape, but I can manage moving my fingers like I'm playing the piano with little to no soreness the next day].  Class finished, I got my stuff together, ran a couple of errands and headed home.

At home, I put everything away, showered, made lunch, and was finally greeted by the sleepy face of the girl, who has taken Extreme Sleeping to a whole new level this summer.  Teenager-dom has arrived.

I started doing some freelance work [and reading some blogs] and time passed.  After a while, I realized I needed to make a call, and that the number was on my iPhone.

Which I could not find.

I kept rechecking the Stephen Colbert tote bag.  I looked in the Whole Foods bag.  I looked on my desk, under the pile of papers, in the drawer, under the desk, on a shelf.  I tried to remember if I had thrown the phone in my bag before I left, because that's one of the last things I do before leaving the house [the other is to hum the theme from Rocky as I walk out the door].

I couldn't remember putting it in my bag, but I definitely did NOT remember being unable to find it this morning.

I panicked.  Everything was on that phone.

I lamented on Twitter.  @Hubbit and @MrsJenBardall, among others, were helpful and consoling.

I called the husband at work - which was not only unhelpful, but also unsatisfying with regard to quelling my panic [The husband:  I know you hate your phone, and you want a new one, but pretending to lose it so you'll get a new one?  Me: I LOVE MY PHONE!  I DON'T WANT A NEW ONE!!  SHUT UP!!! GOODBYE!!!].

I realized I'd lost all credibility with the girl, who we had harped on for losing her phone this past winter.  That, I think, was most painful.  How could I feel markedly superior to my child if I couldn't hold that over her head?

I called the rec center.  No phone turned in.

I went online with AT&T and chatted with a rep.  Not helpful.  No way for them to locate your phone.

I started pricing iPhones.  GAH!  HOW MUCH???

I called AT&T, hoping I'd get some help that way. A wonderful customer service rep patiently helped me, and told me to add the Family Map option, which would locate the phone for me if it was turned on. Then I could just get rid of the option when I found my phone. YAY!  OF COURSE I WOULD.

I hung up and signed up and then had to call back, because I didn't know how to set this up.


The other surprisingly nice AT&T rep helped me and then transferred me to tech support, where a nice guy walked me through the steps to set it up and then, I waited for the map to locate my phone.

All the reps had reminded me that the phone would only be located.  AT&T wouldn't go retrieve the phone.  I could contact the police to go with me to get it, but that was up to me.

I had images of me and the law, showing up at someone's house, and a fuzzy, close up montage of me being reunited with my beloved.

I also had images of us shooting our way in and reenacting a scene from COPS to retrieve the innocent victim.

This is now about 1 hour and 45 minutes into panic time.  I was despairing not only of never getting my phone back, but also of all the potentially productive time I'd lost.  So much writing and cleaning not being done!

And then, the map image cleared and focused and I saw the house that the phone was in and . . .

It was my house.

THE PHONE WAS IN THE HOUSE!!!

I was simultaneously mortified and thrilled.  Mortified, because how fucking dumb am I? And thrilled, because I at least knew that I would find the phone at some point.

The girl and I looked around, and she kept asking me if I had maybe left it in my pants from earlier, and I kept shaking my head and telling her, condescendingly, that my pants from earlier were sweatpants without pockets, no way were they holding my phone.

So she's standing in the bathroom, as I'm rechecking the office and my desk for the 8,000th time and she said, "Mom, I found your phone!"

Which was in the hamper.

In the pocket of a pair of pants I was wearing last night.

The last time I actually remember using my phone.

Yeah.

Not at ALL embarrassing.

I mean, thank god for Twitter and the internet, because otherwise my crazy would have been limited to the square footage of my house.  And we can't have that, can we?

28 comments:

  1. Well damn. And all this time I thought you had actually lost your car keys.

    Probably because that always happens to me and I transferred my incompetence to you. Or I read your tweet too fast. Or I have the attention span of a gnat.

    I am so glad you didn't wash.

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  2. See, about the attention span of a gnat?

    I am so glad you didn't wash IT.

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  3. It's even harder to be me because I thought I lost my phone last week and also found it in my laundry basket. However, the twist to my story is that I've only been on Twitter for four days, so I couldn't even TWEET about it.

    Somehow both I and my cheap-ass phone survived. Personally, I think we're both bad-ass renegades.

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  4. I am so glad this turned out to be a clever ruse pulled on you by your pants... otherwise it might have explained what the LAPD were doing with TWO helicopters spotlighting the high school next to my house last night hovering and shining the spotlight from 2-4 am all over my balcony and street, periodically using the bullhorn to state in both English, and Spanish "Come out with your hands up." True story.

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  6. I'd like to say this has never happened to me but then I'd be lying.

    I once went out someplace and used this bag my husband brought home. Used it all week I liked it that much. My husband saw me walk out the door with it and screamed for me to come back. It was a bag a rep gave him and it had the name of a Herpes drug all over the bag.

    I was a walking advertisement that 1--I had herpes and 2 my drug of choice was working.

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  7. Let's try this again.

    Gah, I've already forgotten what I typed in my first comment. Something about your pants kidnapping your phone.

    Wait, what?

    Glad you found your phone!

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  8. Hahaha! Love it! Totally sounds like me! I once spent thirty minutes looking for my keys, which were in my purse. Of course I started out by looking there, but had to tear my entire house apart before going back to my purse and finding them there. Thanks for linking up!

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  9. I do this practically every day. So embarrassing.

    Did you see my tweet about losing a bra that I knew I'd just had on a few minutes prior? I found it in the dryer. Somehow I had washed & dried the damn thing without realizing that I had even taken it off.

    I'm pretty sure I have the mind of a 95 year old woman. Sharp as a tack, baby!

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  10. Hi, Suniverse! I just tripped over your blog yesterday (I'm only 3 days old in the blog world) and I just have to say you crack me up!! Hope you don't mind me hanging around a little. As for this one, I lose everything. Keys, phone, purse, daughter(kidding), clothes. It's ridiculous really. And just when I think it's just me, The Hub comes in and says, "I can't find my wallet. I've looked everywhere! I'm gonna have to get ANOTHER debit card." To which I respond, "It's on the end table by the sofa where you left it." He's worse than me! He once came in and said he lost the dog. We don't have a dog. After a short conversation I realized he meant to say daughter. I was forced to say, "Good, because we actually have one of those! I put her to bed... an HOUR ago..." We laughed. :)

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  11. Oh dear! Did you have to endure any chiding from the at&t reps? Hopefully not. The raised eyebrows from your daughter were probably enough. I've 'lost' so many things in obvious places recently that it's frighteningly clear the only thing I'm actually losing is my mind.

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  12. you could track your own phone? RIGHT ON! What if an image of your HAMPER came up on the screen? Would that be CREEPY or WHAT?!? Ooo...a sci fi movie in the making.

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  13. One time, I went to the gas station mini mart, 2 blocks from home, and left my phone at home. Thought I was gonna die, or get kidnapped, or shanked or something.

    If I was your lovely daughter, I would totally turn this into an opportunity for a new phone or gadget of some kind. Guilt and shame are awesome that way.

    But glad you found it...now you'll have money for your daughter's new thingy.

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  14. I was so happy that you found it!! I'm telling you, it's all about my connection to St. Anthony. He and I are on intimate terms because I talk to him, oh, every day.

    Meanwhile, how much do I love the very idea of you humming the Rocky theme as you leave the house? I am so doing that from now on.

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  15. I was laughing by the end of this post. That kind of thing happens to me all the time!

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  16. This is cream soda-up-my-nose, painfully, riotously funny. Change you into Margaret Cho, your daughter into Whitney Cummings, and your iPhone into a cupcake recipe, and you've got yourself a spec script for a new female version of The Odd Couple.

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  17. hahaha "THE PHONE WAS IN THE HOUSE!!!" totally sounds like a horror movie.
    Someday I hope my phone loses itself, so that I might buy a smart phone.

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  18. Thank GOD there is another person as loose (minded, that is) as me. I lose EVERYTHING. Husband has to hold my ticket at the movies because somehow, from the ticket booth to the pimply kid checking said tickets, I lose mine. Into outer space, I'm convinced.

    Stopping by from SarcasmGoddess's linkety loo loo.

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  19. Awesome. That would totally happen to me. I used to always make fun of Husband for being a "loser" but the older I get the more of a "loser" I become. I also find things that I stashed away and them forgot about.

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  20. So, uh, the call was coming from inside the house?!?!

    Also, I know what you did last summer. Because I read your blog and stuff.

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  21. Ugh, I do things like this ALL the time. My boyfriend usually goes into the whole "where did you have it last?" 20 questions game. Usually though, its my keys.

    Loved your story!

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  22. At least once a month my dad has me call his phone cause he cannot find it. Once it was in the pocket of the pants he was wearing....

    If it makes you feel better I once left my Blackberry floating in a cooler of empty beers and searched high and low for it....

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  23. your panic attacks are so full of imagination. my usually involve fainting or profuse sweating.

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  24. Alison's answer..your pants kidnapped your iPhone...claasic!!!!

    Omg I can't breath I am laughing so hard....this is exactly the way I tell a story and my mom tells me to "get to the fing point" ha....I'm direxting her to your awesome blog!!!!!

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  25. I lost a phone once when I was 17. It was one of those old Nokia numbers that didn't do anything but make phone calls (novel concept, I know...) I was only allowed to use it for emergencies, so it was a week or two before I realized it was missing. By then, it was probably dead and I kept it on vibrate anyways, so it's not like calling it helped. I've never found it, but I still believe it's somewhere in my parents' car. The car they've lent to me until I buy a new one. I swear I'm going to find that phone one of these days while digging under the front seat looking for my keys or something...

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  26. I love, love, love stories like this. And it has a happy ending too! But it helps me know that I'm not the only one who does things like this.

    I kept thinking some old lady from your water class stole it.

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  27. Oh I bet your teenage daughter had LOTS to say about that one.

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  28. This was so funny for so many reasons. #1 - A guy at work lost his iPhone the other day and turned on the map, too. He also discovered it was - at work. #2 - DH is constantly forgetting/losing his phone and 9 times out of 10 it's in his pants pocket. In the hamper. #3 - Life is so much more embarrassing because we feel the need to share things via social media. Love it!

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Every time you comment, I get a lady boner.