I mentioned on Tuesday that I left my iPhone on the LIRR. New sports coat, pockets still sewn shut, phone not in the regular spot, so I somehow must have left it on the seat. Duh.
Through Find My iPhone, I was able to track it to Long Island City train depot, where my train (and phone) sat on track number three for 2 hours. I could have taken a 5 minute subway ride to get it, but LIRR assured me the conductor sweep of the train would find it.
So I sat there, watching my phone sit in the train depot, until suddenly — oh, shit! — I see it head out to Jamaica . . . then Hicksville . . . Farmingdale . . . Bayshore. Great! My phone is on vacation, taking a week in the Hamptons to relax! Eventually, it stopped on Michael Street in Remsengburg, just west of the West Hampton.
Thankfully, Anna, the honest person who found it, called the number I texted to the phone, and arranged to return it. She is a home nurse practitioner, and was staying out east with a client that whole week. On her way home to Jamaica Queens, she met me in LIRR Plane to the Train terminal, and I was reunited with the phone. (I gave her an appropriate thank you gift).
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Here is my interesting takeaway: There are lots of things I love about the phone, but until you spend a week without it, you are unaware as to how dependent you can become on it. Its more than a phone, its a 2nd brain we rely on. Without it, you can feel surprisingly lost. While the iPhone has a definite “Wow” factor, the lack of it creates more of an “Oh, F*&% !” moment.
On one level, simple data is not available: Contact info, phone numbers, calendar. Frustratingly, there is the lack of access to the grid: Simple things like restaurant reviews, train schedules, and movie listings, that we take for granted when away from a desktop, where not available.
And of course, Twitter.
I got an email from Runkeeper, noting I hadn’t uploaded a run in a week (I wanted to say that’s because I had no phone, but sheet, I hadn’t run since I lost it).
This whole week, I have felt out of sorts without the phone. Now that its backed, unlocked, and fully recharged, I feel myself again.
If you’ll excuse me, Runkeeper wants to go out for a quick jaunt — better go before it gets too hot . . .
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