Reunited And It Feels So Good: Mother Edition

My mom loves her antique cell phone. (It's not quite rotary, but it's close.) She hates touch screens. She firmly believes that buttons should be pressed and not tapped. She also likes to feeling of security she gets when she picks up her phone and it weighs three pounds heavier, thus assuring her that her cell phone compadre is saddled up and ready to go.

Sadly, her favorite style of phone is a dying breed. Last time she went in the Verizon store to get a new phone, she promptly shut down every attempt the polo-shirted salesman made to convince her to try a Droid or an iPhone.

"Just touch the screen. Please, just touch it."
"Yes, very nice. But I want one with buttons."
"It has an amazing camera, you can basically take high-def pictures with it."
"I already have a camera. I need a phone."
"But with this, you get a camera AND a phone."
"I don't want a camera that is also a phone. I want a phone that is a phone."

Her tastes were so particular that the salesman, defeated, eventually trudged to the back of the storage room to search for one "with buttons." Eventually he came back from his archaeological dig with this flip phone.

She still felt the "flip" keyboard might be too "fancy" but she settled because, yes, it has buttons and weighs three pounds.

So you can imagine my mom's panic when she thought she had lost her phone. She had been over at my sister's house, helping her and my brother-in-law pack up some boxes for an upcoming move. She was One With Phone over there. (One With Phone = she has the phone on her person. This does not mean she hears it ring. She just has it. On the odd occasion that she catches it chirping from her purse, she has never actually answered it before it goes to voicemail. Come to think of it, maybe it's less of a phone and more of a mild-mannered beeper that doesn't like to interrupt anybody.)

By the time she gets home, the phone is nowhere to be found. She searches her purse. She searches her pockets. She and my dad prod and peer at every part of her car's interior, calling it on regular intervals for the hope that a dying ring would lead them to its remains. No luck.

Odds are that the phone had tumbled into a box of pans or glassware and is on its way to my sister's new home. Not a big deal, since my sister is moving to a house that is located literally a half mile from my parents' house. But still, its unsettling.

Fast forward twelve hours later. My parents come down to visit. I'm riding in their car. They tell me the saga of the Lost Phone. I offer to give their number a ring, on the off-chance that it still has battery power and my sister may hear it amidst the boxes. Call connecting ...

                                   BUP        BUP
         BUP          BUP           BUP                  BUP       BUP
BUP                 BUP                                                                         BUP


......

                                  BUP        BUP
         BUP          BUP             BUP                 BUP       BUP
BUP                 BUP                                                                         BUP

What's that?

Why, that's the generic ringtone of a cell phone that has no data plan and thus cannot download custom rings.

And the call is coming from INSIDE THE CAR.

Two seconds and one scrambling hand reaching under the front seat and there you have it.

Mom and Phone.

Reunited and it feels so good.