Sunday afternoon, I was helping a buddy dice up a fallen tree.  When I got home, I didn’t have my phone.  Like a normal person, I went through recent events.

At the work party, I had taken a few pictures.  For tree work, I wear a jumpsuit and keep my phone in a deep breast pocket.  Nothing exciting or acrobatic happened as we worked.  I took the suit off in the driveway, stowed it in my truck, and drove home.  I was home, but hadn’t gotten out of my truck when I discovered my phone was missing.

When I started my truck to drive home, my truck said that my phone battery was low.  On the way home, it lost the connection.  Maybe the phone battery died.

It wasn’t dark yet when I emailed my buddy to look around his driveway.  The phone may have fallen out of the pocket when I doffed the suit.  My truck could have linked with the driveway phone, then lost the connection as I drove away.

No joy after a flashlight search of my truck.  If the connection was lost because the battery died, the search is harder.

Maybe I’m deranged.  I looked in my driveway where I unhitched my trailer and on the floor in my garage.  I even looked in the backyard where I walk Sparky.

This could be one of those weird things that is never fully resolved.  In a couple of years, my friend will find the phone buried under some mulch by his lilac bush or I find it in the freezer.  Some dumb shit like that.

Then I remembered that I live in the 21st century.

This will be obvious to modern people, but there was a time when a person was considered to be very clever for taking a photo of the sign identifying where they had just parked in the huge lot or deck.  That’s an easy way to find your car later.  Now that’s pretty obvious.

I’m not the first person to lose a phone, and Google had already put some thought into the problem.  I logged in to Google, and found that my phone was still active with 8% battery.  I instructed my phone to ring continuously, then ran around the house, garage and yard listening.  Ambient noise made it frustrating.

Being dumb is frustrating.  Taking more time on the website, I found the feature that locates the phone on a map.  My phone was a mile down the road.

I emailed my buddy to call off his search.  It’s all good because nobody checks email anymore, so he didn’t see any of it until the next morning.   

By now, it was 11 pm, and it had been raining for a while.  I set my phone to ring continuously, and drove to the indicated location.  I parked and walked, and couldn’t hear it.  Fortunately, that late on a rainy Sunday, there is very little traffic and nobody is out.

I didn’t know if my phone was located by cell tower triangulation or GPS, so didn’t know the location precision.

Then I proved that I’m ignorant, but not slow-witted.  I went home to get my Bluetooth headset.  I turned off the continuous ringing so the phone was operating normally.  The Bluetooth device tells me when it connects and when it loses connection.  By walking the street, I was able to bracket the phone’s location.

The phone was within 10 feet of where Google said it was.  Unfortunately, the 10 feet was from the side of the road to the centerline.  It had been run over by any number of cars, but miraculously, even in the rain, had enough gumption to respond to Google’s pings. 

The phone is impressively traumatized, like if Evel Knievel had a cell phone.

With all the screen cracks and raindrops, the phone was camouflaged to match the asphalt.  When I spotted it, the phone was sparkling in the streetlights.  I wanted to take a picture, but that was out.

The phone rests on the wireless charger, and is paired with the Bluetooth headset.  I can receive calls.  I can’t unlock it with the screen or do anything else with it.

On the good, I’ve got resolution.  I must have put my phone down on the trailer when I removed my suit.  That was dumb, but not deranged.  I would have always wondered.

Also, I’ve had the phone for 3 years, and it wasn’t new when I got it.  The Samsung S10 was a great phone for 2019.  I just ordered a great phone from 2022, so it’s not costing much.  If the data transfer and setup for the new phone is not difficult, then this episode is pretty painless.