I lose my cordless phone all the time. I find it under clothes in the closet, in my kitchen cupboards, under the table, crammed between cushions on the sofa, and of course, my favorite hiding spot is in the refrigerator.
I don't like having to use the big, round locator button on the phone's base. I tend to believe that in such a small area, I should be able to find it easily enough without help. So, I retrace my steps. That's how I figured out I was putting my Parmesan cheese back in the refrigerator when Mom and I finished up our conversation one night. And there the phone was, cold but not too badly frostbitten.
Today, I had to resort to using the locator button, because I wanted to use the phone to return a call from my best friend, Colleen. When I did not hear that familiar chirping sound at all, I asked myself, "Is the phone dead?" Then I remembered getting a call earlier this morning-some phone solicitor harassing me about changing my long-distance service. I don't know what company thinks of selling long-distance service at 8:15 in the morning. I was barely awake at that time, and not even worrying about work, since it was a Saturday.
There was a knock at the door. Opening it, I found my neighbor, Sally, who is around 80. She is slim, with curly blonde hair, glasses, and she always dresses up, no matter whether it is just to go get the mail. I had never seen her with even a hair out of place, and I often wondered why I couldn't be more like her.
"I just heard the strangest noise-well, strange because of where it's coming from," Sally said.
"Really? What type of noise? And where?" I asked, wondering what she wanted me to do about it.
Sometimes I felt more like her mother. Of course, we took turns mothering each other.
"In the dumpster...well, it's beeping, and it won't stop. Do you think someone threw some type of alarm in there? Maybe an alarm clock? Maybe they didn't realize it was still working when they threw it out."
Suddenly the realization hit me. Didn't I just take out my trash this morning? Had the phone just happened to fall off the nightstand and into the trashcan?
"Um, let me take a look," I told her.
She followed as I grabbed a stepladder from the basement, left behind by the maintenance man, who seemed to use it so much here that he must have decided to leave it permanently. Sally opened the doors for me, and just before heading out, I grabbed a snow shovel that was stored in the basement.
I set up the stepladder and began carefully moving trash bags around. It was definitely my missing phone that was screaming at me to be found.
