I got a new cell phone today. A month ago I left my phone in a rental car in Indiana in a pre-dawn airport stupor. After much ado about calling it and texting it for three days, and having my sister call it and text it, all I could get was some girl answering it, saying "Hello" and then hanging up.
I refrained from writing about the stupidity of this person for some time, believing that burning up that last little bit of Karma would be a surefire way to "Nevah see the phone again, see?" as perhaps Jimmy Durante might say. You know, if he were holding it hostage, and gave a damn about it, and was actually alive to know what cell phones were. But now that I have a nice new phone, and never received the old one, this shit is on, and I have no problem whatsoever saying that my phone was found and not returned by one of the most easily rattled and possibly most incompetent mother/daughter duos in existence.
Apples are reputed to fall close to trees.
Three days after I returned from Indiana, I had given up hope of recovering my phone, or more importantly, every single phone number I've collected on it. I don't seem to know 911 without it being programmed in anymore. It's sad. But on Monday morning, my mother's cell phone rang, and it was me! I was calling her! It said so on the outside! And when I awoke from my momentary fever dream, I realized that it was whatever person had it calling my mother, which in their Stupid People Big World existence meant they let it ring two times and then hung up. I called it back, and a similar plaintive female voice said, "Hello?"
I unleashed my most pleasant yet officious "let's problem-solve" voice, and said that obviously she must have my phone.
"Oh yeah. My daughter found it in her rental car! Haha. She was so nervous, she didn't know what to do."
Yeah, it gets all crazy when you find stuff in rental cars. Doesn't it?
"Yeah, it was buzzing and buzzing down in the door, and she didn't know what to do. She was so upset."
I willed myself to say nothing, like, say, "Answer it? Feel the fear and do it anyway?" and focused instead on, "She has your phone. Get it back. Say nothing extraneous. Focus."
"I told her, scroll on down there, there's gotta be a number like a MOM or a WORK or somethin', but she didn't want to try it, she just gave it to me instead."
Parents of America, pay attention. Do not allow this to happen to you, or to your child, especially a child who is old enough to operate a metal vehicle on wheels that can be used as an instrument of death in the wrong hands. Make them do stuff. Now, so they aren't flummoxed by a RINGING PHONE, and all the apparent evil it doth suggest.
"Well, I would really appreciate it if you could manage to get it back to me."
"D'ya think I can just drop it off at a Verizon store?"
No offense to all competent phone store people out there, but I've been in my local Verizon store at some very bleak moments. No faith. No trust.
"Well, if you could just get it back to me yourself, that might be more straightforward. I'm safe, you can give me your address or another address and I'm more than happy to reimburse you for postage."
"Oh, haha, well, I'm in Indiana.
Yes. Clearly. "And I'm in Maryland."
"I'm driving too, so I can't write an address down."
Keep in mind that she called me, presumably to get to the bottom of the situation, which would likely involve some exchange of information that might require recording. Or maybe she was just trying to figure out if I had Pong on my phone so she could pass the time at red lights, and called my mother accidentally. Or when I called it back she thought it was the mother ship beaming down. Whatever.
"Hey, do you have text messaging?"
Yes, hence the frightening buzzing of doom in the car door.
"Well, you could maybe text the address to it and I'll go into work now and turn it off and then when I come out at 5 I'll turn it on and get the address and I guess I'll go to some FedEx place."
"I'm a little worried about the battery dying. Perhaps you could write the address down soon?"
"Well, I'm gonna turn it off."
Sweet Mary Mother of God. I was in Left-Of-Center-Land, where every response was unrelated to the question or comment before. She was clearly not giving me her number. She was not giving me any way to contact her. And I think I knew then that she'd come out of work and my stupid old scratched up phone with my very favorite cell phone pictures (transfer immediately now, dumbass!) and my texts I wanted to keep (Write them down, immediately, dumbass.) and voicemails that I'd pathetically saved. Just...you know, it would be dead. And she'd sit there in her stupid car that only stupid people are allowed to drive and go "Oh, haha, I guess I can't send it. Oh well." and throw it away or put it in a drawer with other stuff that you don't exactly feel right throwing away even if you're very stupid, but have no use for at all. And then they can all sit around while the daughter freaks out about needing to pump her own gas or take her own tests in school or when she realizes who really brings the presents on Christmas, and go, "Hey, remember when I was totally incompetent and couldn't manage to mail a cell phone like I said I would? And how you kept it and brought it home to me instead of giving it back to the rental car company like maybe it would have been a good idea to do?"
I really knew this is what would happen before I hung up, but I didn't know I knew. Those ridiculous "hope" and "belief in the capabilities of other people" things again!
"She could have really just given it to the people at Thrifty when she returned the car."
"Oh, yeah, well she was just so upset and didn't know what to do."
As my cousin put it, in commentary that had me crying with laughter, "I bet she was hitting herself in the head with the phone, screaming, 'MAKE IT STOP.''"
After a week I realized that some glitch in the system had occurred and no phone would be returned. I called Thrifty in a last-ditch effort to get in touch with my slow little friend, and the people there were at first hostile, and then unhelpful, and then grudgingly helpful, after which the manager called back to say that the girl had left two numbers, both of which were inoperable. I waited a month until my plan allowed me a new phone with no penalty, and got one today. I was way over losing the phone awhile ago, but I have to admit that I still hold the stupidity of that conversation in my mind, because I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been forced to participate in it.
The silver lining here is that when I buy new orange socks, the quality of my essential phone photos of them is much better on this model. Prepare to be much less amazed than I am by this fact.
(The socks, by the way, are Corgi brand, which is the official HOSIERY of the the House of Windsor and specifically Prince Charles. The tag tells me that they were originally, reportedly, ridiculously $75 at Barney's, and are now 40 percent off of $12.99 at Filene's Basement. And really comfortable. And orange. I konw you care about all of these riveting details, including the fact that the official hosiery of la Casa de Laurie are those kicky Hue tights, so if you see them on sale, send them my way. I'll even pay postage. Call me, and I'll even work through the fear and pick up the phone.)
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