LOST AND FOUND CELL PHONE

I Lost My Cell Phone

I emptied my pockets when I got home. Randy Broman and I had had lunch on the bench across the street in Dolores Park. No cell phone. I moaned and searched my hoodie, rifled my trousers, looked on the floor and stairs, no phone.

I searched the flat thinkingI had not taken the phone with me. Then I remembered I had received a call from my dentist while I was waiting for Randy. I dismissed the call when Randy appeared and put the phone in my pocket.

I got on the stair lift taking the keys to the house and hobbled across the street to look around and under the park bench where we had eaten our sandwiches. (A salmon cream cheese spread on whole wheat bread and smoked salmon.) No cell phone. I figured someone had picked it up and removed it. I was mad at myself for being so careless with the phone. While I chatted Randy It must have slipped out of the wide pocket of my red hoodie.

Back upstairs I tried to nap and dozed off. Ann came home from her swim with Sue. I grabbed her cell phone and punched in my cell phone number. The lost phone rang and rang. I redialed and a man picked up. I told him I was the owner of the phone he was using. He said, “Yeah, I found it in Dolores Park.”

He said he would meet me at the bench at 6:00 PM that evening. I was there and waited for twenty minutes. I was about to go home when a teen sitting on the bench asked me if I wanted to use her phone to contact anyone. That sure was a generous and trusting gesture. She dialled my cell phone number at my instruction, handed me her phone and turned to join her friends. The man answered and said he couldn’t make the date as an  emergency had come up. (That was a lie if I ever heard one.)  He took our address and said he would bring the phone to me at 3839 20th Street on Wednesday. I told him I had some money for him. I hope that helped motivate him.

A scruffy young man showed up at 10 AM on Wednesday morning and gave me the phone and I gave him $100 for his effort and returning the phone. He thanked me for money and said he really could use it. We left each other happy and grateful.