Last week, I received the dreaded news from my husband. Our daughter, Angel, had left her cell phone at volleyball practice. He picked her up from school and as they were driving he saw her frantically looking through her bags and purse. With tears in her eyes she told him she didn't have her phone. It must still be at the school.
When I came home from work, I picked her up and told her would would go back to see if we could get into the building. I was worried about the phone. We had bought it at the beginning of the school year and it wasn't cheap. I was trying to remember if the phone insurance covered lost phones. Angel was going through some kind of cell phone withdrawal. "My friends are probably wondering why I haven't answered them! What about all of my songs and pictures!"
We got to the school and we were able to get in. We went to the gym and looked where Angel's stuff had been during practice. Nothing. We walked around and looked for a janitor. There were none to be seen. I told Angel that maybe one of the coaches had picked it up, but it was possible someone had taken it. Her eyes welled up with tears again.
On the way home, I knew there was no need to give Angel the "Responsibility Lecture" or yell at her because she was already upset. I did take the opportunity to retell her the story of when I lost my first digital watch from Service Merchandise, so that was punishment enough.
We got home and we were getting ready to find her coach's phone number, but first I asked Angel to go through her bags one more time. "Mom! It's NOT in there! I've checked and I even called my phone from Dad's phone and I didn't hear it ring!" I told her to check anyway, to take every single thing out of her bags. With an exasperated sigh and an eye roll, she started removing her stuff. When she reached in the third time, she froze. She looked up at me with almost a smile, but also with the "I hate it when you're right" look. Yep, she had the phone all along. Yes, she did waste an hour of my life looking for that phone, but I sure loved telling her my watch story...
