A note about losing one's phone

You know that moment when you are in the pub arguing about the origins of the word Chav; your friend says it comes from their hometown ‘Chatham’ but you know it is from the Romany for child. You’re both so adamant that you’re tempted to start singing about treading on an ant. (Niche 80s music joke there.) There’s only one way this can be resolved, a Google duel. You look each other in the eyes and then on a silent count of three you both reach for your phone.  

Imagine a real duel, on a foggy heath, two people steeped in anger, they stand back to back and then march away from each other. A crowd has gathered, tense with anticipation. The umpire raises the flag, both duelists, make spider motions with their fingers just above their holsters. (I might be mixing up an honourable British duel with one from the wild west here.) But instead of shots ringing out when the flag drops, a word echoes through the mist. 

‘Stop, sorry, sorry, terribly sorry, I seem to have left my gun in the last pub we were in.’

Replace gun with phone and that was me in this Google duel.

In Japan, I have to carry two phones; the work phone at all times in case of disaster and your own phone so you can get indecipherable messages from your nephew about ‘a first solo win’.  In the previous bar, I had had both phones on the table because one of the crew was coming later and we were directing her to the bar. (What did we do without mobile phones?) Anyway, I knew I had the phone then, but now as I reached for my pocket to prove that I was right, and let’s face it, when am I wrong?, the phone was gone. My own phone was there, I could check on the etymology of Chav on that, but to be honest the origins of a nasty word were no longer the top of my agenda. I checked all my pockets, my bag, my pockets and then my bag again, I checked the table and the floor and then my pockets again just in case someone had slipped it in there while I wasn’t looking. 

‘Let’s phone it,’ one person said. 

‘We’ll phone the other bar,’ said another. 

Weirdly, despite now checking my pockets for a fourth time, despite knowing I would be billed to replace it by my company, I was not that panicked. Okay, I was checking my bag and pockets for a fifth time hoping for a miracle, but I was not curling into a ball having a cry. 

Now, the problem with having a work phone and drinking with your colleagues is this, we’ve all got the same phones. That means that it is easy to slip a phone that looks like yours into your bag, innocently thinking it is yours.

‘Is this it?’ said Hemily, (I’ve changed the name to protect the innocent.) holding a phone up in the air. It was it; the phone had been recovered. 

So, I am writing this post to thank Hemily for carrying my phone from one bar to another, it’s nice to have people who are willing to do little tasks for you. 

If you enjoy this, please buy my book. It's cheaper on Amazon but if you can buy it from the publisher direct it is better for them and might get me a second one published.