Slippery Cell Phone

Upon my return from the Land of the Slurpy Eaters last weekend, Erin and I ventured to Brown County for a stroll through the shops and a chance for me to regain my sense of Indiana hillbilly. For dinner, we decided to stop in Morgantown, Indiana for a bite at Kathy's Cafe. I remember going to Kathy's as a little kid, my most vivid memory being that they brought me the rest of the chocolate shake I ordered in the mixing cup, in addition to the shake they poured me initially. To a fat third grader with a penchant for shakery, this was dreamy. In recent years, we've considered stopping at Kathy's numerous times, but they seem to be open weird hours, so we jumped at the chance this time around.

Kathy's was quite similar to my memories of the place. The decor hasn't changed in at least 30 years, and they still feature a lunch counter, lots of home made pies, and most importantly, milk shakes. Erin found it amusing that the wait staff wears hospital scrubs. Comfort always wins over asthetics in Indiana. Our food was home cooked and a tad on the greasy side, which made for a nice return meal after a week of duck tongue and kung pow chicken with bones. We returned home to Brownsburg full, which is my minimum requirement for any dining experience.

At some point after returning home, we discovered that Erin's cell phone was nowhere to be found. This is not an unusual occurence, and we have had numerous discussions over the definition of the word "lost" in our marriage. Erin's claim is always that she does not know the location of an object at a given time, but she insists that this does not constitue an item being "lost." Rather, she simply does not currently know the location of the item at this very moment. Sounds lost to me. We tossed the house and cars looking for the phone, but no luck. Usually this means we give it a couple of days, and the object turns up in a glove compartment or jacket pocket. Not so in this case.

So Erin began retracing her steps. She thought the phone was in her purse while we were in Brown County. I must preface this with the fact that on the last trip to Brown County, she bought a purse with zipping compartments to prevent things from falling out as she cavalierly tosses her purse about. She mentioned that as she exited the car at Kathy's, her earrings fell from her purse, and she had to retrieve them from the street. I inquired as to how this could occur with the new purse, and she told me that she had placed the earrings in the front compartment -- "you know, the one without the zippers to hold stuff in."

"Was your cell phone in that pocket as well?"
"Potentially."

The purse with zippered pockets was obviously a good investment. Erin requested that I call Kathy's to see if the phone had turned up, but I remembered that we didn't actually park in front of Kathy's, we parked in front of a hardware store up the block. I called the hardware store, and they said that someone else had called another store on the block asking about a lost phone and that they had looked around in the street but found nothing. I figured Erin must have called Kathy's, so I left it at that. No sign of the phone. The phone we've owned for precisely three weeks.

Wednesday afternoon, Erin's mom gets a call from Kathy's.

"We found this phone in the street. It wasn't charged, so we spent three days figuring out how to charge it to get a number out of it. Do you know whose phone this is?"

So Wednesday night we hop in the car for a lightning fast trip to Morgantown. We retreived the phone, and I got some more pie. At the end of our meal, Erin picked up her purse and promptly dumped its contents under the booth. I may have to weld this purse shut.

As we left Kathy's, I noticed a cute old barbershop up the street. Upon closer inspection, the sign offered up "Barber Shop and Bait." God bless Indiana. Now if we could only find the set of car keys that's been missing for three months...