The worst part about all this traveling is keeping up with my gear. I've learned to check bags when the trip is more than a weekend. The neck strain is too great otherwise.
Well, I had this long layover in Salt Lake City, so I found a quiet corner, where I could make a couple of phone calls, check my mail, etc. I sat the phone down next to me, then went off to the bathroom with my purse, etc. and sure enough if I didn't leave the phone. When I went back 15 minutes later, it was gone.
And, of course, it was time to board the plane. So there I was -- no phone, time to board. What to do? I approached two people at a Delta help counter -- a man named David and a woman whose name I should have caught but didn't. In a rush, I explained that I'd lost my cell and could they please help as I had a plane to board. They both looked up at me as though they were immersed underwater. Everything they said and did was in super slow motion. I've never seen two people move so slow in my entire life. Never. I'm not kidding. And their slowness in speech and movement only served to panic me further. I looked down to Gate 6 and saw the line of passengers boarding.
"Where did you lose the phone?" the woman asked. Her voice sounding much like the principal on Charlie Brown.
"Over in D1," I said. "Right by where that man is sitting."
There was no one else in the area.
She rose from her chair, moaning as if she was a weightlifter picking up 1,200 pounds. And very s-l-o-w-l-y, she walked over to gate D1. It took her nearly 5 minutes to go 50 steps.
The man sitting there confirmed that he had picked up the cell and given it to a Delta employee.
"What did they look like?" she asked.
"Just like you," he replied. "White shirt. Navy pants. An ID badge around their neck. "
"There are a lot of us," she replied, rolling her eyes.
Great, I thought. I had to find the one with the metabolism of a slug.
"Listen, is there a security office or can we call someone? My plane is boarding, please?"
She turned to me and with a frightening snarl on her lips, hissed, "I am trying to help you. Don't you want my help?"
I shuddered.
"Of course, I want your help, " I said. "But I've got a plane to catch."
Then, she walks off. Just walks off. I thank the man for finding my phone and turning it in. As the Delta employee walks past David the Delta employee she shouts, "THIS WOMAN DOESN"T WANT OUR HELP!"
I grab another gal in navy and white. She was smiling. A good sign. I explain my predicament. She says, she's sorry but she works for SkyWest. But, yes, she said, she knows how awful it would be to lose a cell phone. She wished me luck.
David studies me over a furrowed brow. I look to my right. The plane has boarded.
"Please," I said. "I need my phone. Isn't there anything we can do?"
"She tried to help you." he chides me. "You didn't want her help."
Then he gets up and walks away. When he's halfway down the hall, he calls to me, "Well, c'mon! Follow me."
So I do.
He walks into a room with a coded-lock door. Behind the desk sits a Hispanic woman. Another Delta employee. She hands him the phone, without a word. He takes the phone hands it to me. I check it. Yes. Looks like my phone but it doesn't feel right.
The woman employee isn't in sight. She had headed to this same office but I didn't see her.
I take the phone, thank David for his efforts and rush to the counter. The doors are shut but these folks let me board anyway. Behind the shut door is a long line. The last person in line says, "You found your cell phone."
How did he know I lost it? I felt like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
"Yeah," I said. "It was in the security office. But it won't turn on. That's funny because I charged it last night."
I flipped it over. Studied it some more. Kept trying to turn it on.
"I've lost a million of those in the bottom of lakes," he said. He smelt of cigarettes.
"You must like to fish," I said, trying to be nice, but wishing I could just scream. "Do you think they block service in this area?"
"Nah, I don't think so," he said.
"It won't turn on."
"Think something is wrong with the battery?"
"I don't know," I said. "I charged it last night."
I found my seat in row 10A, a window seat, forcing everyone there to move, which only made them upset with me.
After I buckled in, I turned the phone over, removed the back and saw that the battery was gone. Stolen from the phone.
I'm left with one thought: Who stole the batter? The man who turned in the phone to a Delta employeee? That seems unlikely. Why turn the phone in if you are going to steal the battery? Or the Delta employee who was annoyed at being asked to help a client when all she really wanted to do was sit on her internet, undisturbed?
And, if that's the case, how mean is that? How could someone, who is paid to help customers, be so annoyed at having to help that she deliberately took out the battery? Was she sitting in the office, laughing over her devious scheme, while I was sitting in seat 10A, weeping behind dark sunglasses? Because while i understand some things, and why we mess up and hurt each other unintentionally, I cannot for the life of me understand why people want to purposefully go around being unkind to others.
Just for the laughs. Or revenge. Or whatever it is that motivates a person to foul up another person's day.
I was crying so hard, I was afraid the steward might ask me to be escorted off the plane, but instead not one single person asked me what was wrong. Not a one.
Which left me to wonder, would I do that? Would I sit next to a person, crying on a flight, and not even ask if there was some way I could help?
I've knocked on bathroom stall doors and offered to help crying strangers ...
Thankfully, when Verizon learned what happened, they replaced my battery for free.
Yin and Yang.
Good and Bad
We all have a choice.
Lewis Grizzard's mama said it best -- "Be sweet." Choose to be sweet.
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