Yesterday, I did the unthinkable: I forgot my cell phone at home. I made the gruesome discovery half-way through my morning commute. Worried the subway was running later than usual I dug through my handbag in an attempt to douse my fears with the reassurance of my cell phone’s digital clock. But to no avail! My cell phone wasn’t there. It just wasn’t. And then I remembered I had left it on my kitchen table—NEXT to my bag—the very bag that I had on my lap. This is why I should upgrade to three cups of coffee instead of two in the morning, so that I am alert enough to pick up the items that I set next to my bag so that I will remember to put them in my bag.
Anyway…I started to get a bit panicked. Wedged in a seat with no windows, not near an exit, I felt cut-off, isolated, unaware if time was actually moving forward, had stopped…or maybe even going backward. I tried to nonchalantly look over at the woman next to me as she scanned through her blackberry. She picked up my spy-vibe and turned so that I would have had to drape myself on her back and loom over her to read the time. I decided it wasn’t worth it.
Instead I leaned back in my seat like a deflated balloon and begrudgingly accepted that if my fate was to be tardy, well, no watch, timepiece or whatever was really going to change that.
Once I arrived at work…with moments to spare, at 8:50 AM, so all that worrying over nothing…I soon forgot that I didn’t have my cell with me. And then it was 9:24 AM and I remembered again. I missed hearing the familiar “you matter/people care” chime of my Motorola pink razor phone, and the “hey, I have something cool to tell you” alert of a text message.
At first I just kept checking my bag to make sure the phone hadn’t accidentally morphed into my wallet, or maybe it had realized what had happened and had spent the last two hours trying to catch up with me, and somehow miraculously did, and had slipped into my bag without anyone noticing.
Then I began to grow cold, my teeth chattered like an ice-fisherman, my blurry eyes went in and out of focus. That’s when the sweat started to pour out of me. I licked my lips, cracked my knuckles, scratched my scalp. I could no longer sit. I paced the office. Blamed it on cigarette withdraws when people stared at me with puzzlement. “But you don’t smoke,” said one of my do-gooder co-workers. “Shut up!” I snarled. “Calm down!” she hollered back. Well, that was enough of that. I scrambled toward her across the desk like a rabid raccoon and she shrieked, dodged me by just inches and ducked into the ladies room. I just remained on her desk, heaved and drooled, too exhausted to chase her. Papers and pens were strewn on every surface, her bagel with low-fat cream cheese crushed under my knee.
I was relieved when they asked me to leave the office early, take a mental health day. The sooner I could head home the sooner I would be reunited with my beloved cell phone. Twenty-seven minutes later I unlocked my four deadbolts and rushed to my abandoned cell phone’s side. She beeped twice! Once for all the missed calls, once for all the missed texts…thank god, I whispered. The tears ran down my cheeks as I held her against my chest and sighed.
Never again…never, ever again…
