Lost and Found

At about one in the afternoon yesterday, I began to panic.

I could not find my phone anywhere. I checked in my bedroom (usually a repository of all things mine - one of the many, many downsides to still living with one's parents as a result of one's financial woes) but a cursory inpection yielded only my CD player, a car charger for my phone, a similar accessory for my stepbrother's iPod, two passports, a guitar, the kitchen sink - and a startling number of dirty socks.

I will digress here to tell you my secret: I hate laundry. With an absolute passion. I hate sorting it, I hate washing it, I hate drying it, and I loathe folding it. Putting it away just doesn't happen, largely because I've been 'in the process' of moving for the past several months, and for a myriad of reasons, some of which are actually valid, all of my furniture has yet to accompany me. I abhor and detest laundry so much that I have, in fact, gone out and bought new socks and underwear rather than do a load of whites. Several times. So many times, in fact, that the socks have started to take over my room, have formed a collective, and, I was certain, were holding my phone hostage. The ransom? A gallon of bleach and some hot water.

Now, I had a difficult choice before me. Should I negotiate with these terrorists? Should I confront my own bias and actually clean?

So I did the only natural thing to do in the face of such a dilemma. I left.

I began my search at my work, where I watched the truly amazing and incredible hockey game Monday night. I knew that I'd had my phone when I'd left; I was using it to call everyone I knew and tell them that the Edmonton Oilers had just progressed to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And no, I hadn't been drinking - I had the Keys to the Kingdom, or at least the van, so there was no celebratory beer for me. I'm really just like that. So, beginning there, I retraced my steps of the evening that the Oilers defeated the President's Cup Trophy Winners, the Detroit Red Wings. Beginning at my work, where I had watched the momentous event, I then drove to my brother's house, where I had stopped in for a quick visit following the game. Alas, my trek was not to be completed so easily. I then headed over to my sister's place, as I had helped her with a few errands later that night - to no avail, save that she was able to inform me that I had, indubitably, still had my phone at the conclusion of her errands, as she had called me on it shortly after I bid her good night. At last, a break! But what had I done after that? Oh, right - there was a hockey game on. Not the most important one of the evening, to be sure, but a close second - Game 6 of the Calgary - Anaheim series had been underway, and I had been desirous of early knowledge regarding our next opponent in the quest for Hockey's Holy Grail. I had gone out to a pub to watch that game, and it is there I went again, in the hopes of recovering my phone without having to resort to putting in a load of wash. Upon my arrival, I discovered that the server there was the very same who had ensured my supply of cola-flavoured beverages all the previous night. I was thrilled - surely, surely amidst a crowd of drunken college boys she would remember the lone young woman, watching the hockey game with an intensity rivalled only by the play-by-play announcers themselves? And indeed, she did - but, to my sorrow, she had not seen my phone. Her manager, however, had seen one, and for an instant, my hopes were buoyed up - maybe I wouldn't have to do battle with the Seventh Sock Cavalry after all! But, an instant later, my hopes were dashed yet again - the phone he had found was most definitely not mine.

So I did what any normal person would do in that situation: I procrastinated.

See, the only other place I'd been that night before heading home was the bank, to deposit a paycheque - and it was already closed. In the event that some honest person had in fact found my phone, and turned it in to the desk, there was absolutely no recourse to be had at that point anyways. So I headed down to the Ninja's to watch movies with girls, resolutely shoving the whole issue to the back of my mind in order to concentrate on having a good time. Unfortunately, that particular tactic worked better in theory than in practise, and by the time the movie was over I was such a nervous wreck that I simply HAD to get home and have one last look around my room, laundry being now out of the question as my stepmother would have long since retired for the night.

So, after a small detour to ensure that some of the other movie watchers arrived home safely, I got home, and began looking through my things as quietly as possible, and with ever-increasing levels of despair. In my desparation, I even searched through other areas of the house, certain though I was that it wouldn't be there. Finally, defeated, I returned to my room and made ready to go to sleep, resolving as I did so that on the morrow, I would do at least two loads of laundry, AND get to the bank to inquire about my phone before they closed.

But then, just as I was turning down my comforter for the night, what should fall out of my duvet cover but... my phone! The socks had been thwarted in their attempt to deprive me of my primary means of communication. So I happily plugged it in to the wall charger (the battery having, naturally, run down in order to prevent me from finding it simply by calling from the land line) and went to bed, panic attack finally over, and enjoying another reprieve from the need to wash socks.

Speaking of which, I think I need to go buy some more... I'm out of clean ones.