Chirpy Hell

I can't find my cell phone. I've searched the living room. The dining table. The desk top--- all four layers. The bathroom just in case. The kitchen (god, I need to do dishes!). No cell phone. Okay.

So I search the living room. And the dining table and the bookshelves and the desk and the floor and the kitchen and bathroom and bedroom and even strip the sheets off my bed JUST IN CASE. No cell phone. Normally, by now, a person would just use their other phone to call their cell phone and locate it by the ring. But I DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER PHONES. This just adds to the terror.

Stay calm. I know I talked to friends last night after I was firmly in my apartment for the night. It has to be here in the apartment, somewhere. SOMEWHERE. So I email a friend and ask her to call me so I can find my cell phone. But she doesn't get the email right away. And I'm having problems with my blackboard online classroom access. So I need the phone to call the school's help desk, because they don't do email. And find out what's going on, and if they switched browser specifications on me again, or somebody cut through the main internet cable again, or what it is THIS TIME, you know? I mean-- I've got assignments due, and people to bother and stuff. Honestly!

She still hasn't called. Or maybe she HAS called, but my phone is out of batteries now-- because it was down to only one bar when I last saw it yesterday, and OMYGOD I may NEVER find it EVER AGAIN!

"Twitter-Chirp!"

...wait... that was the noise that means I got a text message. IT'S ALIVE!!! and it's in the Northeast quadrant of my apartment. Somewhere. I frantically start to search again, creeping along, bent over so far I look like a demented turtle, glaring at every surface, and peering fearfully under things... shigt. I sit on the floor and contemplate my need to vacuum.

"Beep."

I have a text message, and I can't check it because I CAN'T FIND THE DAGM PHONE-- But there is hope. As long as I don't check my messages, the phone will beep once every 60 seconds as a reminder. I think I'm going to lose my mind. I mean, I know I'm going to laugh a lot when I do find where the cell phone is-- but in the meantime, I get a single annoying beep every 60 seconds to help me find it. This is worse than playing Hot, Cold. Remember that game? Someone else got to determine your goal, but they didn't have to tell you what it was. You just had to bumble around trying to reach for things until they tell you if you can do that or not, based on how close you are to the goal they didn't tell you about. Hmmm... I think I used to have a job that worked like that...

It takes three beeps to find the phone.

The phone is on a pile of magazines, behind a pile of boxes, on the floor, in the exact middle of my apartment. How the heck did it get THERE???!

I check my messages. It's another friend of mine who's sent the text. She's heard that I can't find my phone and wanted to help. I think I'm going to go get a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it now.