My Mobile Phone Woes

The last time I had and used a mobile phone was in 2012, when I was admitted to The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham and then transferred to The Royal Hallamshire, Sheffield spending a total of 2 months as an inpatient. The mobile I had at the time was my link to the outside world and I was using it to text my friend, call husband and family as well as getting online to check my emails and Facebook account so I could leave random photos of my hospital incarceration and status updates for Facebook friends and family.

After I came home I hated the sight of my phone. It reminded me of being in hospital, being unwell, frightened and brought back memories of being away from home, so I did what I do naturally, I put the phone somewhere near the vicinity of my side of the bed and lost it in a drawer full of useful junk. Eventually it ran out of battery charge and died and I didn’t give it a second thought. I took to not having a mobile very easily. It was liberating not to have a communication device on me at all times, which I was expected to answer. But those hay days are at an end now as things have changed in my life and I am now again in possession of a mobile. Well, at this moment sort of in possession of a mobile.

As the likelihood of me being and going places without my husband increases so does his anxiety of me being out there without him. For the sake of easing his anxiety I agreed having my own mobile would make being places easier for both of us. So I was presented with an iPhone and a SIM card yesterday afternoon and left to set it up.

The setting up was very routine and it was a joy to see my iTunes Match in action and put my favourite apps on it etc. I charged it, sent my number to those who would need to use it and went to sleep. I woke to the buzzing of a silenced mobile phone this morning, but can I find it or see the blessed thing? No. That would be too simple. From the last time I saw it, around 2 am this morning when I climbed into bed totally exhausted and full from eating for the first day of Ramadan, to around 10 am this morning it has sprouted legs and decided to play hide and seek with me. I heard it ring/buzz looked maniacally around where I thought I put it and now I can hear it buzz every now and then to tell me I have a missed call but I cannot locate it. Maddening.

I rang my husband from our landline, as I thought no one else would have rung me this morning to highlight my penchant for misplacing things, and I was right as I told him I can’t actually see the phone anymore, he offered to ring it again so I may locate it but I am just not ready to give up trying to find it myself from the place that I know I left it. Although after a half an hour of looking under books, diaries, make up and skincare stuff I am none the wiser to the whereabouts of my convenient mobile. The occasional buzz now mocking my unfathomable talent for mislaying things.

So mobile ownership once again causes me untold frustration and grief but I will not be beaten, it couldn’t have got far in my heaps of things essential and most-needed to be kept by my side as I sleep, ironically the find your mobile app tells me it’s here but not where. I did however manage to locate a dock for it to sit in once I find it. Finally giving in and ringing it led to being on my hands and knees looking for where the annoying vibration is coming from but unable to locate it or have a visual. I think it is behind my dresser but how it got there I have no idea and I will need my husband to move furniture to get to it. So much for enhancing my independence!

…and then promptly lose me…