So by now you know that I lost my phone and I’ve been pretty tight lipped about how it all went down. I took a trip to “The D” (Detroit for everyone not hip to the hip talk, or that doesn’t watch @JalenRose and Jacoby on the podcast). Now if you’ve known me for any length of time, you know that sometimes the winding road that is my life has taken me to some Protect Ya Neck type areas (Kingston, Colombia, Saigon…Oakland J ), so a trip to “The D” shouldn’t be cause for too much alarm. You’ve heard me say “trouble feels the same wherever you are…or whatever language is being spoken…” and heard me explain how the hair on the back of your neck stands up just the same no matter what. You’ve mocked me and rolled your eyes as I’ve repeated such a preface to a story for the 736th time if your name is Rita.
So you went to Detroit and got mugged on the street and they took your wallet and your phone…right? Believable? I’d love to tell you that this is what happened. Well, actually, I wouldn’t “LOVE” to tell you that because that sounds a little unpleasant. It’s not like I’d be so lucky to be mugged by the perfect gentleman who says “Excuse me sir, please kindly place your iPhone and wallet here and step away slowly” while brandishing a firearm, but in the least menacing way possible. Bill Lumberg stops me on the way out of a Starbucks, latte in one hand, other one in hip pocket and says, “Um…yeaaaaaaaaaaaah…if you could just hand over the smartphone and place the wallet on the table, that would be great….”
Naw…this was “The D”. I’m supposed to get jammed up by the cat at the beginning of the Slum Village video (Reppin’) https://youtu.be/J2MlSMeu8Jw who can see the inherent California-ness written all over me and decides he needs a new phone. No, that’s not what happened. It happened on the way, before I even reached the Motor City.
What’d you do…take Greyhound? The train? Stagecoach? (Images of the Bobby Brady/Jesse James episode where Mike, Carol, Marsha, Greg, Jan, Peter and the gang get ambushed…or something in black and white where cats in Fedoras and trench coats with cigars and those cool “Tommy Gun” machine guns with the round piece in front of the trigger
…or some extra grimy hold up at the back of the ‘old grey dog’ as I attempted to head back up the aisle from the bathroom to my seat. No. No…and, No!
I flew. No, it wasn’t some budget airline that you’ve never heard of in case you were thinking, damn…he got got on the plane on one of those janky flights that come out of alternative airports. It was Delta and it connected through Salt Lake City. I was wearing sweats as I seem to always manage to do when I have a lot of flying to do. It was the grey sweat pants, and a blue and gold zip up hooded UANL Tigres sweat jacket. This jacket has two zippered pockets where I generally try to keep valuables that I need to be secure yet accessible throughout the whole airport security process. If I recall correctly, my “wallet” was in the zipped pocket on the right side, and my phone was in the pocket of the sweat pants.
I had a window seat, 22F, and Rita the middle. As people boarded the plane and headed up the aisle toward us she kept sizing everyone up like “she’s hella small, I hope she has this aisle seat” since we were told that the flight was severely oversold and promised to be packed to capacity. In fact, they were offering $1300 credit and accommodations for anyone willing to give up their seat and be rescheduled until the next flight out. Of course, she jinxed us and the polar opposite of a ‘hella small lady’ ended up having 22D and spilling over into her personal space, so, naturally, she leaned over into mine.
I can’t recall why my phone was out during the flight. I must’ve had my phone out and utilizing one of the apps since they now offer wi-fi during the flights. Well, not really. I wasn’t inclined to pay for $29.95 for 3 hours of wi-fi when I pay less than that for my monthly internet bill. So there’s really no good explanation for why my phone was out. Maybe it was just the notion of not being under the draconian “all phones must be completely powered off and put away” laws of yesteryear that led me to have the phone in my hand. Furthermore, I was watching the in-flight movie (Night at the Museum 2) so, no, I really don’t remember why my phone was out.
What I do remember however is that Rita was laying on me and I couldn’t quite reach the pants pocket to put the phone away, so I must’ve put it in the zippered jacket pocket, and neglected to zip it up. I had been sucking down beverages and was dreading the thought of having to climb over Rita and the mountain of a man that stood between me and a clear path to the lavatories in the rear of the plane for a bio break. I was hoping that they would wake up when the movie ended but they didn’t. Oh well. Nature was calling. They were just going to have to be awakened.
They both stood up and stepped out into the aisle, and I made my way into the clear, trying to look cool and not do “the dance”. Who was I kidding? If it weren’t for the fact that at my height, you have to be acutely aware of all of the TV monitors that are at about shoulder level as you walk through a plane, I probably would’ve Usain Bolt-ed to the back of this Airbus 321. Oh…and the captain had put the fasten your seat belt sign on because of some serious turbulence.
Since we’re on the topic of height, imagine me in an airplane lavatory. Let me help you. First, imagine you, and how you probably have not only plenty of clearance between your head and the curved ceiling, but can probably fully extend your arms and spin around if you’d like. Now think of me. When I’m in there, it’s like being in a phone booth with another person. Remember phone booths? Anyway, I digress.
It’s a tight fit to say the least. I can just barely maneuver enough to do what I came to do. So I step up to the …uh..plate and boom! Turbulence! I throw one hand up and one to the side to catch my balance. Unfortunately, considering where my hands were, throwing one up and one to the side was all bad. Had the zippered pockets been zipped up as per the plan, then you wouldn’t have been 1,167 words in to this nonsense right now. Had I been in an exit row or first class or somewhere with more personal space, my phone might have been safely in the pocket of the grey sweatpants. But since they weren’t, they went flying…in slow motion. Now you know how in the movies when the slow mo scene happens and the audio gets chopped(?)..or is it screwed? I don’t know. Anyway, it was like that.
I neglected to mention that I don’t carry a conventional wallet, but instead a money clip with credit cards and ID in it. All of that went flying. If I had taken 2 steps back and did and attempted an underhand toss into the toilet, I couldn’t have thrown it directly in the center. As I held on to the wall and the ceiling, I saw my credit cards fanned out of the money clip right on the flap that opens up for your “business” to go down. The phone, apparently flying on a slightly different trajectory seemed like it must’ve been in the air a little bit longer. That little flap was starting to slowly open and the cards were about to slide down and maybe under normal circumstances I may have had a chance to lunge with precision and even make the save, immaculate reception style . Just then, the phone it that exact same flap and its weight took it all down the chute. Defeated. My shoulders slumped. I shook my head. It was like watching Richard Sherman tip that pass in front of Crabtree all over again.
After staring at the flap that had swallowed my belongings for a minute, I again shrugged, and…um…finished. My license must’ve been out of the money clip from when I went through TSA security because it landed just to the left of the toilet seat. I collected it, washed my hands and did the walk of shame back down the aisle to my seat. Rita looks at me and says, “what’s wrong? What happened?”
“You wouldn’t believe me anyway, even if I told you,” I said.
Rita: “You flushed your wallet down the toilet?”
Me: not audibly, but with a deadpan stare that said, “Really!??”
