To discuss Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Missing Phone

Perhaps the only good that has come out of me losing my phone from about 5:30 p.m. yesterday to having just discovered it this morning is the fact I got to use "Encyclopedia Brown" in the title.

Have you ever misplaced your phone? Of course you have. That's all phones are good for.*

* Unless you have a smart phone, but I'm not one of you people, with your fancy applications and your ability to be cool.

Once you realize you don't know where your phone is, you only have a few options:

1) Cry
2) Freak out and search absolutely everywhere
3) Realize you don't actually know anyone's number by heart and freak out again that you couldn't call anyone on another phone, anyway
4) Pine for the days when cellular phones were the size of Zack Morris' phone, so big that you couldn't replace it. And it also got incredible reception despite the fact he was inside a school and cell phone towers were scant.

I went for a mixture of 2, 3, and 4. I figured out when I got home from work I didn't know where my phone was. At that point, I just thought I had misplaced it, and checked the usual suspects.*

* Not Kevin Spacey's Usual Suspects. Keyser Sozer wouldn't steal a phone.

Still couldn't find it. Went into Threat Level Lavender, which is like Terror Level Orange but more soothing. Checked crazier places. Looked in (no lie) the freezer, the couch, the cabinets, inside shoes, INSIDE MY DOG'S BED, INSIDE THE MOTHERF****** OVEN WHERE THE HELL IS IT?

Still couldn't find it. Posted a Facebook message for people to call me in case I could hear the phone ring, and by ring, I mean buzz, because I left it on vibrate like an idiot.

Sat in my apartment in silence. Didn't hear anything. Became unusually suspicious that my chiweenie Bailey did something with it. Bailey looked at me with innocent eyes. Drove back to work in the off chance I'm crazy and didn't actually have it with me when I left, as I had thought. Nothing.

Searched in my apartment section's parking lot with a flashlight. Nothing. Began dreaming up a crazy scenario in which a neighbor child had snatched it out of my car after I got home from work. Began plotting evil scheme to murder all children by building a house made of candy to lure them in.

Set my regular, old alarm clock for the first time in years, with no phone to use. Woke up this morning hoping to hear the phone's scheduled morning alarm going off somewhere in my place. Silence. Drove to work, and just as I was about to go inside, heard a buzz somewhere in my car. Then silence.

Couldn't find anything, so I went inside briefly to find my boss had tried calling me twice to no avail. Explained the situation. Went back outside to my car. And then I finally found the phone, which had slid across the passenger seat to the opposite side, and then got stuck in a crevice underneath the seat.

I will henceforth use a Styrofoam cup with a string attached.