Friday Fuckery: Where The Hell Is My Phone??

Except in this case, WTF?! means "Where The Fuck did I leave my phone??"

It happened AGAIN.  Seriously.

If I had a dollar for every time I misplaced a phone, any phone, I'd have, like, a SHITload of dollars.  If only there were a market for skilled and creative phone displacement, I'd be a freaking millionaire and I wouldn't have to consider the job as a Lunch Lady at the local high school.  (Which I'm not, believe me.  But for some reason, I feel like I should.)

Every morning I start out with two phones.  Both cordless.  Within minutes, I can't find either one.  No one's called me, I haven't called anyone...

And yet?  Both phones are missing.

Then... the inevitable happens:

I get a call.

I can hear the ringing, ringing, ringing of the phone (sorry... just had a Poe moment.  Look, ma!  My English Major wasn't all for naught!) but I can't FIND IT.

I live in a teensy tiny apartment.  Really, this place is so wee and miniature that you'd almost expect a family of trolls to be living here.  There are literally four rooms.  Four rooms in which to lose two phones.

You'd think that would narrow the odds considerably, wouldn't you?

Well, you'd be wrong.

Let's take a look at the events of this morning:

I got up at 7:45, saw Dan off to work, started the coffee, hopped in the shower, and was planted on the couch with a towel around my head, watching Murder She Wrote and drinking coffee by 8:15.

All was right in my world.

At promptly 8:23, my phone rang.

According to the really annoying caller ID that pops up on my TV screen, it was my mother.

Well, CRAP.  She literally wakes up at the ass crack of dawn (it's only 5:23 in California, where she lives, while she's calling me at 8:23 in NY) to chat with me while she drinks her tea and waxes eloquent about the birds and her flowers and the sunshine in the trees. (My mother thinks she's Anne of Green Freaking Gables.  True story.)

I wasn't in the mood for my mother this morning (long story short, sometimes I just don't give a shit about her flower garden, hummingbird feeders, and arch way that she's having her "arborists" create out of the trees growing outside the picture window in her bedroom.  I just don't.  Because I'm a horrible child and an asshole) but I leaped up dutifully and ran frantically through the apartment, trying to find a phone, any phone.

The machine clicked on before I achieved my mission:

"Hi, Danielle... this is your mom.  It's a beautiful morning and I'm just sitting here drinking my tea.  I just called to talk to you and see how you're doing.  I'll call back in a few minutes... you must be taking out the dogs.  Love you!"

NOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOoooo!!

I run around like a mad woman, trying to remember what I did with the phone(s).  Bathroom?  (Yes, I'm one of those people who may or may not talk on the phone while peeing.  DON'T JUDGE ME.) Bedroom??  Did I take one to bed last night?  Nope...

Kitchen?  Living room?  Stuck between cushions on couch?  Nope, nope, nope.

8:26 a.m.

Ringggg!  Ringgggg!  Ringggggggg!

Each ring was getting more and more judgmental and disapproving.  I could feel my mother, 3,000 miles away, assuming I was ignoring her or (god forbid) still asleep after 5 a.m.

Machine:

"Hi, Danielle... it's your mom again.  (No shit.  Because after 49 years, why on EARTH would I recognize her voice?  Not to mention the fact that she's one of 4 people in the world who call me Danielle.)  Just calling to check on you.  I'll call again in a few minutes.  Love you."


GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!


Where oh where are you, phone?  Ready or not, here I come!

I push the nifty little phone finder button on the main whatever it's called (phone charger?) and I hear beeps coming from all over the house.  I run towards the beeping sound, and it promptly quits.  I go back to the charger, hit the button once again and sprint towards the last place I thought I heard the beeping the last time.

Only this time it seems to be coming from somewhere else.

SNAP.

Ringgggggg!  Ringgggggg!  Ringgggggggg, you ungrateful brat!  Ringgggggggggggg, you don't love your mother or ever call her!  Ringgggggggggg!!!

Machine:

"Danielle, it's your mom.  It's now 5:29, my time.  I'm getting worried.  I'll call back in a few minutes.  Love you."

OH MY GOD... like I couldn't possibly have a reason to NOT BE HOME at 8:30 in the damn morning?????  If I don't find that phone, like, NOW, I will have the entire freaking police force + FBI on my doorstep, complete with cadaver dogs and a Priest.

I hit the phone finder button yet again and charge in the general direction of the beeping.

Oddly enough, it seems to be coming from the washing machine.

What the...

???

OHHhhhhhh.  NOW I remember.

I took the phone with me into the bathroom and set it on the counter by the sink while I took my shower. Obviously, I set my jammies on top of the phone on top of the counter, showered, and after drying off, tossed the towel and jammies AND, consequently, the phone, into the washing machine.

Of COURSE I did!!

Ringgggggggggg!  Ringgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg!!

Me:  "Hi!  How are you?  Sorry I missed your earlier calls... It was such a nice morning I took the dogs for an early walk!"

(*Sidebar:  It's raining, and there has never been a day, ever, in the history of the world, that I've taken my dogs for an early morning walk.  I open the door at the bottom of the stairwell, watch them wander out to the first bush on the left, pee, and then we come back upstairs, where Maisy passes out under her blanket and Javi sulks under the coffee table because Daddy went to work without him.  I drink coffee and ignore them both.)

After I got off the phone with her, I searched high and low for the other phone.  Where oh where...

I wonder...

Nooo, I'm not THAT oblivious... am I?

Of course I am.

Since I had carried one phone into the bathroom, naturally I felt the need to carry the OTHER phone into the bedroom when I got dressed for the day and made the bed.

Sure enough, there was the other phone, face down under the sheets in my neatly made bed.

Obviously, I need one of these.  Only then, of course, I'd misplace the giant hole in my ear.

Other random places I've found my phones:

Folded neatly in towels while I'm folding laundry.

In the pantry, where I apparently set it down while looking for food.

In the microwave.  (Don't ask.)

One time, I put the TV remote in my purse and left my cellphone at home.

Stuffed between the sofa cushions.

In my dresser drawer, once again as the result of a laundry mishap.

In the drawer in the bathroom where I keep the toilet paper.  (Again, don't ask.)

In my car.  (Keep in mind, this was a land line.)


I could go on, but really... I'm starting to embarrass myself.

Guilty as charged.