Allyson Johnson

Word Gets Around

I was attending a Women’s Camp on the west side of the Rockies in Colorado. My sister-in-law was at the camp also, along with one of her besties. One evening one of the other campers (DH) drove me and my friend DB to dinner and a theatre in Grand Lake, while my SIL and her friend spent the day touring nearby Rocky Mountain National Park.

Dinner was lively, with sixteen campers chattering away, and afterward we hurried to get to the theatre as it was beginning to rain. I pulled out my phone to check the location of the theatre, and when we parked I hurried around to help DB extricate herself from the seat belt. Only after we were in the theatre and I reached to put my phone on silent mode did I realize that it was not in my purse where it belonged.

Had it fallen out in the car? Or in the parking lot where we had stopped? I rushed from the theatre – the car was locked, and there was no sign of my phone anywhere along the walkway to the theatre. I figured that best case, when the show was over I could ask DH to call my number; if the phone was in the car we would hear it, and if someone had picked it up maybe they might answer a call.

After the show I relayed my plan to DH, and she pulled out her phone. First thing she saw was an urgent message from my SIL: “Allyson’s lost phone was picked up by an Australian man named Barney. He and his friends are at the One Love Rum Kitchen and Bar for trivia night. If Allyson doesn’t get the message he will leave the phone with the bartender.”

Great! DH and I left DB to guard the car and hustled along to the One Love Rum Kitchen. We walked into the lively, well-lit pub and immediately a gentleman was waving my phone in our direction. ( Barney could not have looked more Australian if he had been sent from Central Casting.) Lots of excitement, thanks, hugs, and my phone was restored to me in perfect order (Nancy and Barney at left above). But how had the message reached DH’s phone?

Chain of circumstances:

1. I had not gotten around to putting a password to secure access to the phone. (Shame on me, but…)
2. When Barney and his friend Nancy opened the phone, they were able to see that I had recently called HOME.
3. But when Nancy called HOME, she caught my husband drowsing over a book. He did not understand what Nancy was saying and, thinking it was a prank call, hung up on her.
4. Undaunted, they went to the next call on the recent list, my younger brother C, who was trailer camping in Wyoming, but happily with decent Internet coverage.
5. C got the message, and fortunately remembered that our mutual SIL was in Colorado at the camp with me. But he didn’t have her phone number.
6. So C called my older brother D in Texas, who relayed the message to his wife, whose roommate happened to have the cell phone number for DH, who relayed it to me.

Happy Ending! thanks to the miracle of modern communication, and as always, thanks to the kindness of strangers.