My Phone Is at the Bottom of the Lake

Yeah, I know now what not to do. My phone flew out of the boat last weekend. I did not plan on that. I spent the rest of the weekend trying to recover what I lost.

It cost me a lot to replace my phone. It cost me time. It cost me money. It cost me, period.

My phone is at the bottom of the lake.

It was in my pocket when I got in the boat. I didn’t put it in the cup holder because I thought it might not be secure when I turned the ski boat corner. Instead I put it on the seat.

It flew out on that corner turn. I didn’t know it then. I searched and searched the floor and behind everything in site after I came in. No phone, nowhere.

Find my phone app to the rescue

So, I called the company on the landline phone. “I lost my phone. Can you help me find it.”

“Yes,” they said. “We can.”

Waiting, soon after, I heard the results on the other end of the tech department phone from personnel.

“Your phone has been located. It is at the bottom of the lake.”

“Ok.” What else could I say? They even told me on a map, pinpointing the location. Yep, that’s it.

So what’s next?

Data recovery backup

It really happened, just as I am telling you now. No joke. No made-up story. No one threw it there. I forgot. No excuse. My fault. Consequences. I had to pay.

I took a trip to the store to get another phone. They had my account. The “cloud” had backed up all my data, addresses, texts, emails. That’s something new for me to know, yet I realized that whenever I had changed or upgraded to a new phone, that is what they did, too — access the cloud, the unseen data collector tool in space.

A few days later, I’m back online, on my phone. Same sounds of incoming texts. Same phone numbers and names to access.

Tracking you and me all the time

Some may feel that this is an intrusion — to have all that data on some server in “the cloud.” I don’t now. That helped me out. Of course, if it is Secret Service, that’s a server I don’t know how they access. I am glad that I have a new phone now to resume my communication network of friends and family. I guess my phone, and losing it a while, showed me just how much my brain depends on it now.

Accountability is important more than ever before. I know I would put it in the glove compartment now before I speed away in the boat. If I hit a bump or turn too fast, it probably would not pop open that space and fly out of the boat and into the lake again.

Or, I could just leave it behind — out of the boat for a while, away from dings and buzzes. Give me a break — enjoy the water, the fish, the skiers.

My lake does not look as pretty as this picture, but the water is still deep. I do not plan to buy a wetsuit to dive down to see. Maybe someone will find my phone years later and try to extract some info when they ask, “How did it get here?” They will find this story with the facts.