Cellphone Scare

I almost lost my cellphone last night.

By that, I don't mean that I accidentally left my cellphone somewhere but realized just in time that I did and found it right away.

My dad and I were at a secondhand bookshop (Book Sale) last night, digging through back issues of magazines and bin after bin piled with sundry books. I was holding two magazines, slipping against each other because of the plastic, and a plastic bag containing a DVD. My cellphone, in its blue pouch, shifted alternately between my hand and and my wrist, which I wore using the drawstring.

So, I was holding quite a lot of things, and my mind was on what I was browsing, so I wasn't really paying much attention anymore to what was in my hand. I thought, as long as I didn't leave anything or of I didn't feel something slip off my hand and land with a thud or whack (depending on which item would fall), then I'd be okay.

But as I got in the car and began to arrange what I'd thrown in ahead of me, I realized that I wasn't holding any cellphone to put in my handbag. I panicked and immediately cried out, "My cellphone!" We returned to Book Sale to retrace my steps. I was thinking hard about where I'd spent the most time browsing, where I would have put down anything I was holding to remove a book, all the while shaking remarkably. The worst of it all was that the gadget was still on silent mode, so any attempt to locate it by sound was futile.

I felt terrible. This was so irresponsible. This has never happened to me... ever. And I thought I had just proven myself responsible by taking care of all our finances while my parents were away on vacation. My mind was racing, thinking about the things I needed to do to set things right. I had to call the service provider. My god, did I need to buy a new phone? I didn't want to spend so much of my salary. Dad aggravated that wretched feeling by saying, "It's probably already been sold to one of the cellphone vendors here."

Dejected, I opened the car door... and as I glanced at my seat before getting on... there it was. My cellphone, all safe in its blue pouch. God, it was there all along!

On the way back home, my little sister texted me. I almost cried at the possibility that someone could have been reading that message. It wasn't anything confidential. But it was personal. And some thief shouldn't be allowed the privilege of seeing even a bit of what is mine, even if there were absolutely no way for him to contextualize it.