Some days, it feels like the world is testing you more than others. It’s like, no matter what you do – something goes wrong.
It usually starts out small, right in the morning, and you just know it’s going to be one of “those” days. Progressively, the small things turn into bigger things and before you know it, you’re hitting all the red lights when you’re in a rush. And then you spill coffee all over a white shirt before a meeting. And then, of course of course of course, your phone is lost in Las Vegas and you’re stuck on a plane flying back home to LA.
5:30 am
I heard my coworker I was sharing a room with come in from being out all night in the casino with co-workers. Luckily, I fall back to sleep quickly.
But then at 6 am, I say to her from my bed, “Your alarm is going off!” No response.
She is laying on her back fully clothed, dead to the world. Get up. Turn it off. Go back to sleep and 2 hours later, it goes off again. I turn it off and decide it’s time to just get up and start the day
Go down stairs.
Walk through the smoky casino, to a mile-long line for coffee. I hate waiting and I hate lines. Standing from the back, I watch each person ever so slowly order their coffee. Fiddle with their money after the transaction. Slow like a snail, collect their belongings from the counter and head to the creamer station. One by one, we inch forward.
At last, it’s my turn!
Coffee in hand, I rush back through the casino hearing the ring a ching chings and ding ding dings of the slot machines.
Back in my room, it’s time to turn on the computer. Get to work. Scour through emails and get ready for the show!
But then, a bind request from a million-dollar account comes in. Pressure is on. Hop on computer while talking to clients. Where are my co-workers? I need help!
I can see the way this day is shaping up and I don’t like where it’s going. This is quickly turning into a no good, very bad day.
Now
I’m in a taxicab on the way to the airport, chatting with my kids. We arrive and I set the phone down to swipe the company credit card. I get out, grab my stuff from the trunk and walk through the double sliding glass doors. As soon as we walk through them, no less than 60 seconds from exiting the cab – I realize. My phone.
It’s in the cab.
Crap. World over. Or at least, so it feels.
To anyone who’s ever lost a phone, especially lost in Las Vegas, it literally feels like an extension of you is missing. Like an arm. Or a leg.
I know, sounds dramatic but I think we can all relate to that. Suddenly, I feel hopeless. Powerless. Like I won’t make it through the rest of the day without crying.
I need to find it.
As soon as I realize I have about 15 minutes to try and get the driver, I start panicking. What was the name of the cab company? It was a yellow cab, I know that.
I oddly remembering taking detailed mental notes about the taxi during the ride. I remember it was yellow and it said yellow cab on the side. Imagine that! The driver’s name was flashing across the meter and I try to remember her name. I think it was Paula Rodriguz. She had light brown hair and was wearing neon blue sunglasses.
I could pick her out of a lineup.
But what cab company was it?
I call the number of the cab company I think it is and the woman who answers tries running the credit card through the system to see which cab I was in. She says there is no transaction with that card. I tell her the taxi was yellow and the driver was Paula Rodriguez. The whole time I am walking toward security using my coworkers dying phone – hoping they will say she found it before I go through the metal detectors.
No such luck, they say the driver doesn’t have it.
We get through security and my coworker stops at Coffee Bean. I feel like I have limited time with her dying phone to try and get it back before it’s Lost in Las Vegas forever and I’m on a plane back to LA. So, I log into findmyphone.
I See The Phone.
It is on Spring Mountain Road & Ledell Street. It’s at a shopping center with a Cathay Bank and some Brazilian restaurant. I call back and tell the woman I spoke to that I can see it is en-route back to town from the airport. It’s somewhere I haven’t been. She isn’t lost in Las Vegas. IT HAS TO BE IN THAT CAB.
“Nope sorry, we already asked the driver to pull over and look. It’s not there.”
Nothing I can do.
Once home, I use the 10% life left of my co-worker’s phone to tell my Mom to meet me at Lovi’s in Calabasas to get the kids. Should be about 45 minutes, I say.
SO MUCH TRAFFIC.
It is LA of course. Regardless, I am happy to be home and just driving with my windows down on familiar streets with with a warm, light Santa Ana wind blowing through my hair.
This makes me feel like everything is going to be alright. It’s a good thing I know where I’m going because the free navigation trial in my car has ended and I don’t think I could use a Thomas Guide now, even if I tried!
She won’t be lost in Las Vegas forever. Oh yea, my phone is a she now.
I arrive at Lovi’s after which I am think was longer than 45 minutes, but I’m not exactly sure how long it was because I zone out while I drive and am in another world listening to Phish radio.
Trey sings to me: Everything’s right, so just hold tight!
I sing along with the volume on high because there are no kids in the car. I dance in my seat as I drive. Pull into the lot but she isn’t there.
Then I start to worry that I took so long – that maybe she left. Afterall, I am not exactly sure how long it took me to get here. Was it 45 minutes? An Hour? An hour and a half? I don’t know because I can’t check my phone to see exactly what time I called her!
Inside the deli.
I ask the host if I can use the phone and he gives me a funny look.
We really have become so dependent on technology. I noticed in the airport even – no pay phones anymore. No body uses them. If you lose your phone like me and need to call – we actually need to ask random strangers to borrow their phone. Would I trust a stranger to use my phone? It’s kind of like handing someone you don’t know your baby. I’d make them stay right by and the whole time would be waiting to react in case they decide to take off with it.
But then I remember that most people are inherently good. Repeat that to myself and I feel it – I will get my phone back.
I know it.
Back home, I work on getting the kids, all of their luggage and my bags into the house. They want McDonalds for dinner and I’m too lazy to protest so I head to the drive through.
They don’t have many vegetarian options here and although I’m not vegetarian I try to be. . I usually get the southwest salad with no chickin. I settle on a fried chicken sandwich though because at this point, I’m feeling sorry for myself and am eating my feelings.
After serving my children and stuffing my face with greasy goodness I decide to try more detective work. I need to findmyphone.
So I google it.
I search through company websites and look at pictures of the cars to call the ones that look like the taxi my phone was lost in Las Vegas in. I find a number which I am sure I called before but try it anyway. They say the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again – expecting a different result.
Surely, I have gone insane over this damn phone.
Press 2 for lost and found and leave a message.
Stare at my phone’s location and think. WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?
At this point, I call AT&T to start the claim process on the insurance I have in case my poor dear phone is truly a POWMIA.
No Soldier Left Behind.
I call the cab company and he takse the four digits of my card and says, oh yes, you were in cab #3092. Driver is Paula Rodriguez. She hasn’t come back yet for the day and they can’t call her now and she hasn’t turned anything in.
That’s weird.
When I called earlier, they said she “pulled over, searched the car and nothing was there.”
“Well, sometimes people think they left it somewhere, but it doesn’t turn out to be.”
“Well,” I say, “I know I left it there. I was talking to my kids on it in the car and my friend I was with saw it on the seat next to me when I was paying. I forgot to grab it. I actually noticed right when I walked into the airport.”
“Why didn’t you call earlier?”
“I did call earlier and was told it wasn’t found. I have been on a plane, driving, feeding my kids dinner, searching for the cab company. It was also ringing before and now it’s turned off. I am sure someone has found it.”
At this point, he takes my number and says he will ask the driver.
And at this same point, I feel defeated and sure my phone will end up on the black market of lost cell phones somewhere.
I’m Sorry Honey.
My husband says annoyingly calm.
Just as I go online to start the claim process of getting a new phone, my husband’s phone rings. It’s a 702-area code. A call from Las Vegas. Could it be?
I answer immediately, “Hello? Hello?” the reception is bad.
“Yes, is this Laura?”
“Yes, it is.”
“The driver came back; she had your phone. Call the lost and found number for all things lost in Las Vegas taxicabs on Monday and we’ll ship it out.”
THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU.
Throughout this whole time, I kept telling myself – it’s just a phone.
But for some reason, it felt like a great loss.
Like part of me was missing. And I think a lot of people can relate to this feeling.
And when the man from the cab company called me back to say he had my phone, safe and sound – I could finally, relax. The search and rescue mode was over.
And just like that, all was right in the world again. Everything IS right so just tight.
It was four days,
which equals to 96 hours without my phone. During that time, I started to slowly disconnect. The phantom vibration of a text or call coming through stopped around 36 hours in. By the third day, I didn’t even care to scroll FaceBook from the spare iPhone 6 phone we had in a drawer.
I told my husband proud, “I think I’ll carry out this new way of life even after my phone comes home!”
But then it arrived, in a FedEx package at the office like it was Chrsitmas morning. I tore into it and threw the pieces on the floor like a child breaking in a new toy.
And then I hugged and kissed her tight, like a long lost family member!
She’s home! And I’m back to being tethered to it like a baby in utero, bound to her mother by umbilical cord.