H lost his cell phone. He had it at work Wednesday night, and then it was gone. He and his co-workers looked for it, and one of them kept dialing the number so it would ring, but it was gone. H was helping load containers Wednesday night, and of course, the theory is that it's in one of those, on its way to Sri Lanka or Australia.
We got phones at the same time, years and years ago. I had a little StarTac, and maybe a year later, he switched it out for an updated one. It has number storage, voice mail, messaging, redial and probably call waiting, if I ever figured out how to access it. It has a text screen. No camera, no games, no PDA, no color screen. I don't want all that stuff on there, I barely use the phone. I do remember to turn it on now, when I leave the house, and I mostly remember to turn it off when I'm home. I have no use for the frills.
He lost his phone a couple of years ago, and went out the next day and bought a new phone with lots of bells and whistles. The day after that, a woman called, having found his phone. He wasn't exactly gracious, since he'd fallen in love with the new one, but he took it back for a refund and reactivated his old one--his second, too, since the technology jump had obsoleted his first one as it had mine. A few months later, his phone died. He either dropped it too many times, or it just expired from fatigue. And he got an even newer replacement, with a color screen, and a few frills and furbelows. I was a little jealous.
But he can't be without a phone, and so today he went and got an even newer phone. It has a screensaver program--he can probably download Webshots, since we have an account with them. It's silver and sleek and new and pretty. He checked his voice mail, and let me listen to it. When his old phone fell out of its holster, it fell onto the conveyor belt, and dialed for help. I listened for over a minute as it traveled down that scary chute, packages clumping and thudding around it, machinery rattling...on and on it went, alone and helpless. I actually teared up a little, imagining it wishing it could ring and call H to find it. He just grinned and snapped his snazzy new phone shut and clipped it onto his belt.
You know what? I think it may be time I drop my phone in the driveway and run over it with the car....