Everybody Samsung Tonight

Mistake:  A fault in understanding, perception, interpretation, etc.; blunder; error; misunderstanding.


I lost my cell phone yesterday.  Is there a worse feeling in the world than the one you get when you realize that you've lost your phone?  Is there a question more full of arrogance and self-entitlement than the one that suggests that losing a cell phone is some kind of big, existential crisis?  Jesus H. Christ, do I live a privileged life or what?


I was already in bed last night with the lights out when I realized I hadn't set the alarm on my phone so that I could wake up early the next morning for no particular reason that I'm aware of.  I got up as quietly as I could -- there is nothing I fear more than a snoring SuperK awakened -- and started fumbling around the apartment in the dark.  I was disturbed to find that the phone wasn't in one of the few places I try to put it.  I have a lot of trouble remembering anything so I restrict myself to as few choices as possible when it comes to the location of important things, like cell phones, wallets, and car keys.  In the old days I would put the phone in the freezer or inside a pair of shoes at the back of the top shelf in a storage closet in the basement.  Don't ask my why.  I would be doing something, I would get distracted by something else, something sparkly, and set the phone down, then wander off to do a third even sparklier thing, with all these things, sparkly or not, relatively unimportant.  


Several hours later I'd wonder aloud: "Where's my phone?"
"When did you last use it?" SuperK would ask.


I'd look at her blankly, then check out my hand hoping that the phone would magically appear there in the manner than my misplaced sunglasses magically appear on my head.  I could see the thing in my hand.  I could visualize it clearly.  It was the thing leaving the hand that baffled me.  SuperK used to laugh at me when I lost things but doesn't do that anymore.  She knows I feel bad enough about the destruction of all my short-term memory circuitry without piling on.  It's really quite sweet.


I cursed a bit then went back to bed, thoroughly awake at this point.  I assumed that the phone was out in the car,  parked across the street, in the cold, cold night.  I lay there for a few moments, letting the agitation build, nurturing it even, then got up again.  I put a coat on over my jammie tops and stepped into a pair of shoes.  I left the jammie bottoms in place.  Jammie bottoms can speak for themselves.  There's only so much in the way of propriety that I can be expected to endure, and out into the cold, cold night I went.  


I dug around the car for a good 5 minutes, finding nothing in the way of a cell phone although there was a lot of interesting stuff under the seats.  I came back into the apartment and looked  for another 20 minutes, the flashlight beam probing every dark corner, trying to be quiet.  Nothing again.  Incredulous that the phone wasn't in the car that I had just searched like a motivated DEA agent, back out into the cold, cold night I went.  I tore the #$!! car apart this time.  Less than nothing.  No cell phone.


It took me a while to get back to sleep.  It took me longer than that to #$!! warm up again.


This morning I woke up pissed off about the phone.  I have a lot of trouble accepting the fact that I make mistakes, this in spite of the fact that my unofficial nickname is Little Stevie MistakeFace.  I feel less than, incompetent, a failure when I make a mistake when the fact of the matter is that it's a miracle that I don't lose something important every other day.  I called my athletic club and a coffee shop that I frequent, which were the only two places that I had been the day before, and was disappointed that my black Nokia cell phone had not been turned in.  This confirmed my suspicion that every one else in the world is a thieving piece of #$!!.  I would have turned it in, without a shadow of a doubt.


"Did you say Nokia?" SuperK said from the other room where she had obviously been eavesdropping, obviously as fascinated by me as I am.  Actually, she was probably in there muffling giggling.  "You have a Samsung."


"I have a Samsung?" I said.  "I don't think so.  I really think you're mistaken."  


"And it's blue," she added.


"It's blue?" I said.  "I don't think so.  I really think you're mistaken."


She showed me the picture of my phone that she had called up on line.  She is acutely aware of the fact that I don't admit that I'm wrong about anything, ever so she doesn't point out where I'm wrong without doing some research.  The research doesn't take too long because I'm often wrong, and clearly so.


I call back.  The club had my phone.  My black Samsung phone.  


"Can you tell me what picture you have as a screen saver?" the woman asked.
"A little kitty that's asleep," I said.
"Yep, we have it here.  We'll hold it for you," she replied.


I had forgotten about the little kitty, too.