I am a creature of habit. I sit in the same place on the same chair at the kitchen table. Granted there are only two of them and I live alone, so that isn’t such a big deal. But I do the same thing whenever I go to breakfast, lunch or dinner at the diner – always the same booth or the same stool at the counter, and always the same diner. I rotate the filtered water pitchers in my refrigerator clockwise. I have three of them, and rotation enables me to use each pitcher approximately the same number of times and it extends the life of each filter by 2/3s so I can change all three filters less frequently and at the same time. Whenever my daughter visits she terms my behavior “obsessive compulsive’ and refuses to rotate the stock. In fact, she goes out of her way to use the same pitcher over and over. I told her she is “passive aggressive.” I also never fail to put my mail in the same place – unopened on the kitchen counter top, opened on the counter top in a clay pot one of my kids made for me years ago in elementary school, and to be mailed tucked behind the wall phone above the counter top. I hang my house and car keys on a hook I installed by the front door just above the space where I place my cell phone for safekeeping.
So all my attention to details makes what happened last week surprising.
The sun was finally shining after several unsettled pre-summer days. The birds in the maple had been extremely diligent in doing their duty, mostly on the flat roof and windows of my SUV, The Silver Fox. The late-morning temperature was mild enough to invite outdoor activities. It was a perfect opportunity for me to absorb some Vitamin D and wash both cars, the be-speckled Subaru Forester, not a Miata in the driveway, and Carlotta Miata in the garage that had been gathering layers of dust over the winter. I changed from my dress t-shirt into one more suitable for work and pulled on a pair of cargo shorts, the ones with the “full elastic waistband” from the Blair catalog where I am a “Preferred Customer.” In recent years most of my clothing came from that catalog, and pretty much all of it with part or full elastic. I grabbed both sets of car keys from their respective hooks and set out to wash away the months of neglect that had built up on the cars. In my younger years when I’d lived in Brooklyn, even in the dead of winter as long as the temperature was above freezing, I never would have allowed dirt to accumulate on my car before I rolled the hose down the alleyway and scrubbed it off. And most times after washing I added a layer of wax to keep the rainwater beading off the gleaming surface. Of course, in those days I would have chosen death over wearing elastic pants!
I parked both cars in tandem, shampooed them with soap, scraping the bird residue with the sponge and ran the hose until only clean water rolled down the driveway and into the street. Then I carefully wiped them dry with a real chamois, stretching to reach the top of The Silver Fox, bending to sop up the pearl-sized water droplets from Carlotta’s garnet red mica finish, erasing streaks from the windows like magic. Then came the wax and two and a half hours later the afternoon sun bounced off the gleaming surfaces of the cars making my eyes hurt, but not nearly as much as my back. I carefully stowed the cleaning supplies where they belonged in the garage, rinsed and stretched the chamois and hung it on a non-metallic hook so it would dry without rust spots, rolled up the hose and dragged myself into the house for a hot, soothing shower. Slowing to replace the keys, Carlotta on top, TSF below, I saw that the appointed place for my cell phone was empty.
“No worries,” I said to myself and went into the bedroom where my cat Ursuler was sleeping on my pants I had been wearing now neatly folded on the bed. I moved her without waking her and rifled through the pockets. Nothing. I went back into the living room and dipped into the pockets of my “Members Only” windbreaker. Empty.
I stepped over the blinky-eyed cat now watching me from the corner of the rug and went into the kitchen. The table was empty except for my wallet and pocket change and likewise the counter top where only opened mail was waiting to be addressed.
“Oh oh!” I said as Ursuler padded into the kitchen. “I must have left the phone in the car, Urs.” She was settled in the doorway looking looking somewhat like a bowling ball on legs staring at her dish in the hope of maybe getting something to eat even though she knew it wasn’t time. I passed over her squatting body blocking my path and headed out the front door.
First I checked the center console of TSF where I always stashed the cell phone and sometimes forgot to retrieve it until after I was back inside. This time the space was empty. I kneeled in the still damp grass to peer under the front seat. The dirt muddied my knees. There was no phone, but I did find 17¢ and the sour apple Jolly Rancher I'd dropped last winter. It was also phoneless in Carlotta. I scoured the garage, the grass around the garage and the bushes in front of the house, retracing my steps, peering into shadows and poking into impossible places.
Ursuler watched me from her place on the living room windowsill. This was getting serious. She could see the worried look on my face and she looked concerned too, but I suspect that was more because she was worried I might forget to feed her. I flew through the front door muttering to myself and Urs followed me as I re-checked all the places I had checked before, as well as places the phone could never be – the kitchen garbage pail, the dirty laundry hamper, inside the microwave. I even opened the refrigerator, which briefly raised Urs's feeding hopes, until I slammed it closed.
“Crap!” I said out loud. “What now?”
Urs meowed.
I grabbed the cordless from its cradle, recalled my unfamiliar cell phone number with some difficulty and punched it in. The mechanical sounds of connecting echoed in my head and then I heard the cell phone ringing in my ear, and ringing somewhere near as well, the distinctive ring tone playing the pentatonic scale that gave my cell an Oriental flavor.
“It’s close,” I said. “The bedroom.” And I rushed inside to listen while Urs trailed behind. “Under the bed,” I said dropping to my knees to have a look. Nothing. The phone stopped after four rings, so I redialed and again I heard the ringtone. I put my ear to the floor and announced, “It’s in the basement!”
A surprised Ursuler followed me down the stairs as I ran from room to room until the ringing stopped.
Redial. I listened to the four rings.
“Outside on the patio!” I said as I rushed up the basement stairs scaring Urs and burst through the back door.
Redial. This time it sounded like it was once again coming from inside, from the computer room, but it stopped ringing before I got there.
Redial. The phone was close. I tore through everything in the room, the desk drawers, the filing cabinet, the closet where I kept my supplies.
Surprise! It was nowhere.
Twenty times I redialed and each time the sound of that lost phone drew me into another part of the house, each time without success. Exhausted, I stopped in the hallway, the epicenter of my little house, and heard it coming from the linen closet. I flung open the door and rummaged through all the clean towels that had been recently neatly folded, stacked and brought up from the laundry room in the basement. Still nothing.
I punched the numbers again and heard the sound so close I crouched to get a better fix. And this time I could hear the vibration. I could HEAR the phone vibrating! Was I crazy? Even Urs seemed concerned for my mental health. Hell, I could… FEEL the phone… vibrating. And then silence.
I placed one last call, my twenty-third or twenty-fourth, and stood very still. The five-tone melody sounded, mixed with the vehrrrrr of vibration. I reached down and felt the ringing phone in the extra pocket of my cargo shorts, the ones I’d bought with the “full elastic waistband.”
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