Five Scary Words

When you go to a scary movie, the actor will usually show a look of total fear on their face. This no way compares to the look of total fear, devastation, and a complete loss of direction as these five words: I lost my cell phone.

Your life is in total turmoil. All your contacts are gone! I don’t know the phone numbers of my friends and places I call all the time, which I need to have a normal life.

It wasn’t that long ago when you knew your friend’s phone number, your favorite restaurant, the doctor’s office, and other numbers that you would call regularly. If you didn’t know their number, you could go to the phone book and look it up.

Now for you who are 25 years old or younger the phone book was a book that had all the people’s names listed alphabetically with their number and address listed, like Google search today. Seems like the phone book and the encyclopedia are things of the past. It is about that time you realize that, not only can’t you call anyone; you no longer know what you will be doing he next three months. Birthdays, meetings, appointments, and all your social events were in your calendar. Can’t contact your friends, as they don’t know your agenda. In addition, you also can’t get on the internet; your life is now in total chaos.

Your friends finally show up to see if you are alive, since they have been calling and texting you all day and have gotten no response. You tell them thanks for coming by, but you lost your cell phone.

Now your friends have that same look of fear, when I was in grade school the teacher told us that there is no such thing as a dumb question. Well the next question that is asked by your presumably intelligent friend might test that theory. Where did you loose it? If I knew that I wouldn’t have to look for it. Your answer to that question is just as intelligent, I don’t know!

Of course you don’t know. Now with the help of your friends, the first step is to spread out. One in your car, one on the back porch, one in the garage and two strategically located in your home while a friend dials your number. It’s ringing, but your friend announces that it goes to voicemail. The results, nothing, no one heard a thing. Your fear is back. Maybe it is on vibrate, or worse yet, the battery might be dead.

You now start making plans to restart your life. How fast can I get it replaced? How long will it take to renew my contact list? How will I ever be able to get all the important dates in my calendar? You decide to make one more attempt in the search for your phone.

You start by backtracking your last 24 hours. You go through your days and moments. Yes, there it is right where you left it. Your life is back. The dark skies are now full of sunshine. All is right with the world. You call your friends to tell them the great news. They ask with a great deal of concern, where did you find it? Your reply, “the last place I thought about looking.”

Of course it was the last place you looked, there was no reason to look further. Now you may want to keep looking after you find it so that the next time you lose it, you will have practice looking.

In conclusion if you ever lose your cell phone just remember the sun will still rise, you will still get bills in the mail, and mankind has existed for thousands of years without cell phones. This is just another blip in your life and no matter what you are looking for in your life, most likely you will find it in the last place you look.