Happy Happy Joy Joy

This is the story of a chocolate eclair, a missing cell phone, a bar, and the kindness of a stranger named David. This is the story of my afternoon.

Today was a beautiful, sunny day - a good way to kick off Spring. William and Henry both woke up this afternoon from their naps around the same time so I asked Henry if he wanted to go on a walk to the bakery near our house and get a treat (i.e. a large, seasonally shaped sugar cookie caked in delicious sugary icing). By the time we left the house and I got both boys in their stroller we had only 20 minutes to make it to the bakery before closing time. We made it with a few minutes to spare, but to Henry's dismay all of the cookies were sold out. Then to my dismay he chose a chocolate eclair instead. It's an occasional treat, so I let him take his pick from the display case - I later realized he would eat only the top off the eclair, the chocolate part. I'll be honest, all of the speed walking caused me to break a sweat. I was steaming, so after we walked about a block towards home I decided to take off my coat and put it in the stroller. A block or so later I thought about my cell phone that I had in my coat pocket. I stopped the stroller to make sure that it was still there with all of the shifting around. I reached into both pockets and found no phone, then I thought maybe I put it in my wristlet after we left the bakery so I checked there but also found no phone. As I was digging around the stroller a man across the street shouted, "are you missing your cell phone?" With his question he affirmed that I was. He then proceeded to tell me something that I couldn't figure out because of the distance of our conversation and the constant flow of traffic passing by. I finally figured out after several failed attempts at interpreting what he said "my phone's on the ground?", NO, "you have my phone", NO, "oh there's a man in a gray sweatshirt up ahead with my phone". Ok, so a man had picked up my phone and was walking in the opposite direction with it.

I thanked that man and spun the stroller around and started walking towards the stranger in the gray sweatshirt. As I explained the whole crazy scene to Henry he kept saying, "that man took your phone mommy". We walked toward the man who was only a block or so ahead of us but couldn't catch him before he slipped into the door of a bar next to the bakery. As I approached the door I figured at 4:00 no one would be in there so I'd just open the door, peek my head in and see the man in the gray sweatshirt and retrieve my lost phone. I was wrong. There were stairs leading into the bar, so I couldn't take the stroller in. So I backed it in and held on to it with one arm and opened the door with the other. I was wrong about the crowd. The room was full and all eyes darted to the door, the stroller, the children. I suddenly wondered what I was even doing here and thought about just ditching the phone and finally getting the Razr I've always wanted. But I was already standing there, so I explained that I had dropped my phone and that a man across the street told me that a man in a gray sweatshirt had picked it up and then I saw that man walk in here. Everyone was very helpful, but no one seemed to be able to find a man in a gray sweatshirt holding my pink phone. Finally when it seemed there was no hope (about 3 minutes into the ordeal) someone shouted "wait!" and then the gray sweatshirt emerged. He handed me my phone and I thanked him very much and turned and finally started walking home.

Now what's the first thing you would do if your phone went MIA? I checked the outgoing calls and noticed that at 4:00 when my phone was missing my mom's cell had been called. So I called her right away and after she answered she said, "Christina, how did you find your phone? David called me." Oh my word, the kind man's name was David and he had called my mom. He told her that he found my phone and saw my mom's number (listed as Mom Cell) and thought she'd be a good one to call. He told her that he would be in town for 2 more hours and how to reach him to get my phone back. Pretty creative problem solving on David's part. I'm thankful that he was helpful and that I was able to retrieve my phone. I wish someone would have called me between 4 and 4:10-ish, I think it would have been hilarious for good old David to take a few of my calls.