“I lost it. I lost it. I lost it.” - backup singers to Teddy Pendergrass’ hit song ‘The Love I Lost.’
This is not a testimonial or an advertisement. It is not a promotion. And I’m not bragging about my abilities using hi-tech. Which are limited at best. It’s just what happened.
I have to set this up. I have written about this before (July, 2016, to be exact).
I lose things all the time. I leave things all over the place. By all over the place I mean all over the world. Car keys in Rome. My wallet in a Los Angeles hotel. My passport at Heathrow Airport in London. I’ve left paychecks backstage in casinos, I’ve left my driver’s license in a rental car in Orlando, and once I left everything - wallet, keys, phone, and computer - in one of those carts you rent at the airport. That particular episode ended well because Mark Nizer, a fellow entertainer, FOUND the items and sent them home to me!
The truth is I have been very lucky. I repeat: I have been lucky. 99% of the time I get the stuff back.
OKAY. Friday I fly home from a gig in the Midwest. It’s my one-nighter routine: fly in, drive to the gig, do my job (thank you Pair-A-Dice and FAMILY HOUSE!), sleep, drive to the airport and fly home. When I get back, I race off the plane and through the terminal to my car in the parking lot. This time I have two carry-on bags and I sling them into the back of my Nissan and drive out through the ticket booth where I pay my bill and head for home!
I listen to music on the 30-minute drive. I’m planning the rest of the day. I’m gonna see my wife at the beach. I’ve got writing I need to do, and there are some radio spots I need to record - but for the most part it’s gonna be a fun weekend! As I pull into my driveway I realize it.
I DO NOT HAVE MY PHONE.
My iPhone. Last I remember? I put it on the roof of the car before I left the airport parking lot.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
I get out my iPad. I pull up the “Find my iPhone” app. And there it is. A cute little full-color pic of my phone sitting just outside the parking lot at the airport.
My wife is texting me: “are you home yet?” I text back: “you don’t wanna know.”
She is sick of the never-ending lost items. She has suggested I keep a tote board. She thinks I’m an idiot.
I drive back to the airport. I drive to the exact location where the “Find My iPhone” app pinpoints the device. It’s been moved from the parking lot to an area just off the airport, a makeshift parking lot/waiting area underneath an overpass for Uber drivers and other non-taxi services. I drive in and park. I have my iPad with the locator showing me EXACTLY where the phone is. I question a driver. “Did you find an iPhone?” He doesn’t understand me. Most of the drivers are from points all over the planet: Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, etc. I ask four to five people and nobody has it.
BUT! Every once in a while the little pic on my iPad, showing me the EXACT location of the phone, MOVES. Yes. It jiggles. And as I’m watching, I see the man I first spoke to put something in his pocket just as the phone does its little wiggle. I approach him: “ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’T HAVE MY PHONE?” I’m not nice about it. I saw the icon on my iPad move at the same time he put whatever in his pocket.
For some reason, at that moment, I look up. A truck is going across the overpass.
Loudly.
I look at the pic on my iPad. The iPhone moves. I look at the man I just yelled at.
“Uh… sorry.”
I get in my car and drive up that overpass, and there - sitting in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD - is my iPhone in its green case.
Yes. I drove off two hours before, didn’t know the phone was on top of the car, and it slid off into the highway as I motored home.
Now I pull over on the shoulder. A car rolls over the phone and jettisons it a couple of inches toward the middle of the highway - hence the little “wiggles” on the “Find My iPhone” app. I run into the road, dodging traffic, grab my device and run back to the car.
The “tempered-glass” screen cover is broken. But the phone works! The cover is beaten up and scratched, but the iPhone works!
I have started the tote board.