Momentary Panic

I do admit my little Nokia is not much of a cell phone. There's no camera, none of the fancy smart phone features. No qwerty keyboard. No apps. No internet. I even had texting disabled after I had to pay for my first spam text. There's wear showing on the face where rubbing occurs, and scratches on the view window. It's so old that when the battery wore out, I actually went on eBay to find a replacement - the only source I could find - rather than replacing the phone like last time. The "zero" key has to be pushed several times hitting just the right sweet spot in order to register the stroke, something a bit tricky when navigating through voicemail systems. Since zero is also the key that works as the spacebar when typing text (still used when adding to the phone directory) it can get really interesting. It falls out of my shirt pocket in the summer when that's my only layer of outerwear and I bend over to pick up something from the floor. I can't put it in a pants pocket if it's on, because the keys and detritus in that picket will dial out for me: there's no flip piece to protect the keys.

It is just a phone. It's practically an antique in today's world. But it does carry 1500 minutes a month for a very reasonable price. As a phone it functions very well. While it can be depended upon to drop calls on a particular 12-mile stretch of Hwy. 95, that's along the river valley and I figure all phones do that there.

It is also my connection to the world. Everybody's phone number is in there whom I might want to talk to again. My take-out Chinese place is there, my pharmacy, my post office, my dad's doctor, my... well, everybody. I gave up memorizing phone numbers years ago when I had known some people long enough that they'd changed their number for the fifth time. Somehow the brain memory is no longer there for that kind of thing. I don't even know Steve's phone number. The only one I really know these days is under the heading "home".

Some of those numbers just aren't anywhere else. So last week when I reached to my shirt pocket and found it empty, having made a call an hour earlier so I knew I hadn't just left the phone home, I panicked. I was driving, and spared a hand to check the floor on either side, looked at the floor in front at a stoplight, checked out the passenger seat where I lay the work Nextel.

Nada.

It must have been put back next to the pocket instead of in the pocket, and slipped out the bottom of the sweatshirt at some point when I got out of the car. I'd had several stops since I'd used it.

The implications start to sink in, contingency plans form rapid-fire in my brain. Do I take off work? Where do I go to get a new one? Will I relent and get a camera phone this time?

Suddenly the brain kicked into gear. There was one last chance. Next time I pulled over, I texted my dispatcher to please call my cell so I could see if it was still in the car. I could hear the ring and know where to hunt. Within a minute the tinny sound of Pachelbel's Canon sounded, to my great relief, from my lower right side. Not on the seat, not between the seats... IN THE PANTS POCKET!

My relief greatly outweighed my humiliation at such a boneheaded move, as I answered dispatch with, "Oh thank God!" I didn't bother to mention where I'd found it, just thanked him for his assist. And since I still wasn't fully recovered from whatever bug had laid me low, I chalked it up to that and forgave myself for putting me through the stress.

After all, it ended well.