I lost my phone the other day. It was Big Lost, like airplane on a weird island with polar bears kind of Lost.

I have misplaced my phone before, mind you, but usually some muttering and tossing of couch cushions will produce it.

Or, if I’m truly desperate, I go to pleasepleasemakemyphonering.com and then the children think it’s a lovely fetch game and are off and running in search of a ringing noise coming from underneath the cat. The best part of this little game is the blessed three or four seconds of total silence I can eke out of the boys as they listen, little ears perked up, for the faraway ring. It’s even more fun if the phone is on vibrate. Maybe even more so for the cat.

Anyhow.

I had no phone. This is really frightening to some of us, especially, it seems, most of my college students. I don’t know what they would DO if they lost their phones. Probably have a conversation, for one.

I did not panic; I used the  technology that my husband keeps telling me is so great and that I usually roll my eyes about (he has six pages of apps on his phone. SIX. Most of them are apps to help him “make life easier.” If you need six pages of these things perhaps you should just give up).

I used an app he put on my ipad called, Find My Phone. And, it did. I punched in my numbers, and then, lo and behold, my little phone finder did exactly what it told me it would do. This, in our over-burdened but oh-this-will-simplify-your-life-we-promise technology land, is very rare. The app very sweetly told me that my phone was down the street. Three blocks down the street, exactly. There was even a map with an arrow pointing right at the wandering cell phone!

And lo, I put 2 and 2 together and came up with a dollar.

That’s, Dollar General, ya’ll. (I know. I am soooo funny.)

My phone was shopping at the DG. And, since I was a bit fearful it might want to purchase one of those Duck Dynasty camo covers, I hightailed it right down there.

It is, I guess, good to note that the phone was there because I was there earlier, buying a huge box of bargain cat litter and Hershey’s kisses. I buy cat litter about every three days at the DG because I have the most regular felines ever.

I am not really sure why I shared that with you.

Anyhow, I returned to the DG, all hopeful, and had this conversation:

Me: Hi! My ipad told me that my iphone is here.

Dude at counter: You left your phone?

Me: Yep. And it’s here. I have a map with a little pinpointy icon to prove it. Wanna see?

Dude: (Reaching under counter) Uh, nah, we have a phone? (This dude was what I like to refer to as an uptalker. This is a style of speech most indigenous in the below twenty set who for some reason don’t know what they are ever trying to say, so have resorted to making each statement they utter sound like a question. It hypnotizes the listener into speaking very loudly and slowly.)  And some, uh, sunglasses? (looks rather disdainfully at my huge Gucci knockoff windshield style sunglasses that I feel all cool in, and got from some guy selling them off a blanket in a piazza in Italy, so very European and chic but actually also rather ratty.)

Me: My sunglasses! My PHONE! Yea! Thank you!

Dude: Yes? You’re welcome?

Me: Thank. You. Very. Much. I’ll. Be. Going. Now.

Dude: Um, your mom called? You need to call her back?

And that’s when I spied it. With my phone and Blublockers, was a note that had my cellphone number and my maiden name scrawled on it. So my mom called while my phone was out, and the DG dudes answered and she gave them my info. All of this was just a simple way that the universe wanted to remind me to call my mom more often.

But then I thought this:

Why my maiden name? Does she have a deep-seated resentment of my marriage? Was this some sort of psychological slip? Do we need family counseling? Am I perhaps analyzing this a tad too much?

And:

 If they had my number, why didn’t they just call me?