Panic In The T-Hoe Redux

I just LOVE re-using titles. Don't you? Don't YOU love it when I recycle, rerun, re-purpose, reiterate both title and subject matter? That's a rhetorical question. A certain someone need not weigh in, unless it's to give a LITERAL two cents!

Back in June, I had a little mishap with the loss of my precious scratchers! Sunday, I had another little mishap. Only indirectly related to scratchers.

On my daily town trip, I stopped by Country Mart (for the second day in a row) to pick up some pinwheels for The Pony (the food kind no longer carried by The Devil's Playground, not the spinning toy used to entertain children back in the olden days), and some biscuits. 

From Country Mart, I pulled into the drive-thru line at Dairy Queen for my 2-for-$4 chicken strips and pretzel sticks. I was six cars back, and behind a car with at least three people inside. So I was in no mood to wait for them to decide, and get a large order. I chose to leave the line, tool on over to The Gas Station Chicken Store one block away at the light, and get my magical elixir and scratchers first.

I still had my mask in my pocket where I carry my phone. I have it ready, you know, in case there's a crowd, or management tells asks me politely to wear it. Country Mart was not crowded. I only passed one person, and the checker had her mask and plexiglas shield. As I got back in T-Hoe, I left the mask in my pocket for the Gas Station Chicken Store. 

I was the only customer inside. The clerk wasn't wearing a mask, and she also has a plexiglas barrier to protect her from my non-sickness. Back outside, I emptied my pocket in the usual way. I laid the scratchers across the console, my phone on top, and put the mask down by the cup holder, on my sunglasses. I then used both hands to settle my 44 oz Diet Coke into the holder.

After hoisting myself inside, and writing a CH on the back corner of the tickets, so I'd know they came from the Gas Station CHICKEN Store in case I had a winner and wanted to remember not to buy that ticket again too soon... I headed back to Dairy Queen.

Now I was eight cars back! Oh, well. It was my last stop. I reached for my phone to send The Pony a text, so he'd be ready to help me carry in the groceries and our lunch. 

WAIT A MINUTE! WHERE WAS MY PHONE?

Sweet Gummi Mary! I was sure I'd just misplaced it. I looked all around the console, down between the seats and the console, on the floor of both seats. I felt in both compartments of my purse. I picked up my purse, and took everything out. Sometimes that slippery little glass-backed Samsung Galaxy A51 gets down in a crevice and slimly hides itself from my fingers. But no. It was not there. I looked in the back seat, on the floor. No phone.

By this time, I'd moved one car forward. My heart was racing. It's not the thought of paying for a new phone that gets me. It's the thought of learning how to use a new phone that makes me panic! What in the Not-Heaven was I going to do?

Wait a minute! One time, when Farmer H was driving me around for some dual errand, I had lost my phone at the Gas Station Chicken Store. We'd parked way off to the side. As we pulled out into the back alley, I noticed I didn't have my phone. I told Farmer H to go right back to where we'd been parked, overlooking the moat across from his pharmacy, CeilingReds.

And there it was, back then! My phone, lying on the pavement. It was just fine, and had simply slipped out of my pants pocket as I climbed back into A-Cad. 

Surely I had put my phone on the console when I left the Gas Station Chicken Store. Didn't I? Was I just remembering my routine? No. I'm sure I laid it with the scratchers. But how could it disappear? My heart pounded a bit harder. What if somebody ran over it? What if somebody took it? I needed to get right back over there!

I pulled out of the DQ line for the second time. I could see over to the Gas Station Chicken Store. Nobody was parked where I'd been, right there at the corner of the building. I had to stop at the light. The dummy ahead of me sat there when it turned green! I was ready to give him a HONK when he finally got into gear and turned right. Across that intersection I went, and pulled back into my parking space. After first looking to make sure there was no phone on the ground, of course.

Huh. I guess all I could do was walk inside, and ask the clerk if anybody had turned in a phone. And ask her to keep it for me if they did. But first, I went through all my searching again. Nothing. I got out and felt all up under the driver's seat. I walked around, and felt all up under the passenger seat. No phone. I opened the back passenger door, and felt up in under that part of the front seat. Looked all around the floor back there. No phone.

WAIT A MINUTE!

Over behind the driver's seat, lying on my soft, soft maroon quilted coat I used to wear for parking lot duty... was my phone! Face down. Its shiny reflective back kind of taking on the color of the maroon ridges of the soft, soft coat.

WHAT A RELIEF! I ran around--okay, I hobbled faster than usual--to the other side, and opened the back door, and retrieved my precious Samsung Galaxy A51 from it's cushy would-be extremely shallow quilted grave. It must have been sitting cockeyed on the console after I wrote on my scratchers, not down in the little tray area where it usually rides.

I climbed back in. Sat a moment to compose myself, caressing SamGalA. Then lodged him safely in the indented part of the console, and headed back to Dairy Queen for lunch. There was nobody in line. I barely had time to send that text to The Pony.

I was still a little hyped-up when I got home.