Lost and found

Using the “find my phone” app

As much as you prepare for the dreaded day that your cell phone gets lost, expect to go straight into panic mode.
Besides the fact that all “smart” phones are expensive, you cannot put a value on the lost data that is stored in it, or worse yet the phone found and information shared to any other person.
It was early on a Saturday as I took my morning bike ride that I let my phone get away. I have a basket on the front of my bike to carry small items but after taking a beautiful flower photo, for some reason, I placed the phone in my sweater pocket.  I rode off a few blocks and noticed another beautiful flower to photograph.  I reached into my pocket, and it was empty.  I checked the basket, and it was also empty.  My first thought was that I didn’t bring it along, then I thought about the other photo stop and my heart started racing.  Quickly, beginning to panic I tried to remember how long was the setting to lock after being used.  My mind went totally blank.  I could not even remember what the case looked like as I looked at the ground around my feet.  So, my sensible side told me to calm down, take a deep breath and let the oxygen flow to my brain and come up with a recovery plan.

The Plan

I decided to walk my way back along the route towards the first beautiful flower.
My eyes steady swaying from left to right along the ground, anxiously searching.
As I approached the flower bed, I was sure my “lost phone” would be vibrating away from all my missed messages.  Nothing there to be seen or heard.
I now moved from panic to acceptance and made my way home.
I thought about calling someone to ring it, but that’s not going to work because I don’t have a phone to call anyone!
I opened my laptop and logged on to Icloud and things went into motion here.
I went to the “find phone” app and immediatley put it  in “lost mode”. Once again hoping for it to be in the flowers. the map pulled up the location and my phone was on a road trip!  I was watching the green dot move west, then into Walmart.  I thought ” should I go to Walmart and walk around looking for a person with my phone”? Just about then, it starts traveling again.  I watched it continue west and finally, it stopped. I zoomed in on the map and could narrow the location to two addresses. A tab then shows and asks to send a message to the phone that reads” This phone has been lost please call me — — —-.

I went to my neighbors and she was home, so we put her phone number in the message. On the laptop I started changing passwords on open accounts with apps on the phone, all the while hoping that someone would make contact with me at any moment.
Sure enough, within minutes we received the call and a friendly hello from a “phone finder”.
The lady could not have been nicer and to be as accomodating as possible. I asked if it was a good time for me to come and get the phone.  I did not let on that I had her address, but it didn’t matter because she was kind enough and insisted on bringing it to me.
I never thought about how much of a problem losing a phone could create. I did have a five-minute lock setting, and now even though it gets annoying I have it set for one minute. I also give Apple a thumbs up for making it as easy as pie to locate a lost phone. If the phone would have been turned off at least I would have known its last location and whether or not to continue to look.

Ben & Jerrys-Cherry Garcia-My favorite

It sure was a lot easier to keep my business to myself when everything I needed was stored in my brain. I only had a few data losses back then from brain freeze, but ice cream is so yummy.

Bee Happy and eat the ice cream

Ragtag Daily Prompt-Contact