I can’t find my cell phone. Again. I hate how dependent I have become on an electronic device! And the worse part is, my phone isn’t even a state of the art slide-phone with apps and GPS and bells and whistles. I can make calls. I can take calls. I can text. That’s it. Yet, when the phone decides to grow legs and take a personal day, I’m left feeling like I’m missing a limb.

I was 20 when I got my first cell phone. We’re talking 1999, people. I had this Sprint flip phone with a digital display window. Mercifully, it wasn’t the size of my shoe, but it surely wasn’t high on style. It was to be used only in case of emergencies, like when my car broke down on the side of the road or when. . .well, when my car broke down on the side of the road. That’s it. And that was okay. I left it in the charger most times, I took it to and from work with me, but mostly forgot that I had it. Fast forward ten years and while the cell phone model I have is just as antiquated, I count it among the things I have to have when I leave the house. Wallet? Check. Keys? Check. Cell? Check. I have those three things and I’m good to go. Wait, I’m supposed to have something else. What. . .was. . .it? Wallet, keys, cell. Wallet, keys cell. Oh, the kids! Right.

Anyway, the cell phone has been gone for about 48 hours and I’m starting to worry. It’s not as though I haven’t misplaced my phone before. I lost my phone when we were living in our last apartment. I looked everywhere, I called it from the house phone, nothing. I was worried it had gotten stolen and some yahoo was racking up long distances calls on my nickel. So, I got T-Mobile on the phone and was getting ready to have the whole thing shut off when it occurs to me to ask the sales rep when the last call was made. She gives me the info and I’m puzzled because not only did I make the last call, I know exactly where I was when I made it and what I did when I finished. Cut to the front hall closet, and there, in my jacket pocket, on vibrate (of course), is my phone.

But back to my current predicament. I asked the girls if they’ve seen it, which elicits a “yes” from one and a “no” from the other. I’m not even going to pursue it with them. I ask DH if he’s seen it, to which he replies, “Last time I saw it, you had it.” Thanks, honey.

I channel my inner Sherlock and start re-tracing my steps. Of course, the problem is, if I knew where I had it last, I wouldn’t have to do that, right? So, I just start working my way through the rooms of the house. I check our room, the bathroom, the closets, the girls rooms, the guest room, the other bathroom. I head downstairs, and I ransack the laundry room, the kitchen, the living room, and the family room. In the family room, I upend all of the cushions in the sofas and find the following:

1. several popcorn kernels

2. half of a princess tiara

3. 28 cents

4. two pencils

5. a Netflix envelope with no DVD (whew!)

6. a Barbie brush

7. a Barbie shoe

8. a Valentine’s Day sticker

9. 1 broken potato chip

10. my lovely disposition (I was wondering where that had wandered off to)

I go back upstairs and go through my pocketbooks, even the ones I’ve forgotten I own. I look in my gym bag, I look in shoe boxes. I go back downstairs and look in the pockets of all of my coats (again), even the ones I know I haven’t worn in the past 6 months. I even open a package I had wrapped for the UPS guy hoping that maybe I boxed it up by mistake.

No phone.

I call the phone. I mean, I call it using the house phone, though I’m getting to the point where I’m not above calling out to it, “Phone! Phone, you better answer me when I’m talking to you!” Clearly, this is driving me crazy.

I’m thinking about where I had it last. What was I planning to do? Charge it. So it’s probably somewhere without power. Great. Okay, but where was I going? DH and I were going out of town and I planned to charge the phone when we got to our hotel. But the thing is, I realized on the way out of town that I had forgotten the phone. Ugh, I’m just going down one dead end after another. I figure that I’m take a zen approach and stop looking for it. The phone will come to me. Yeah, that lasted all of an hour.

I got up this morning and started going through the house all over again.

My last resort was to check my car. Again. It’s early, about 5:15 am and I look like Zippity-Do-Dah in my pajamas/sweats and winter coat as I head outside. Turns out we forgot to re-arrange the car seats from DH’s car back to mine, so I figure, I’ll handle that before I look for the phone. I unlock his car on the passenger side and something tells me to stick my hand in that little catch-all pocket affixed to the door.

Sonofa–

I’m getting a leash and a bell for this flippin‘ thing.