Pieces of the Puzzle

My cell phone got stolen. Bah! The perils of possessing a real cool device. Ok, fine, I’ll admit…I lost it!. I figured this out after two whole days. Shows how exciting my social life is. I also have a reputation of never picking up calls, just because I never hear the damn thing. I have set it to the lowest volume possible since I don’t want to cause disturbance here at work and never revert back to audible volume afterwards as I forget to do so. I just deal with abuse from friends and family. What the heck, my friends will call and then email me to pick up the phone. It’s been working fine. I maintain that my phone is for emergencies only (one sided emergencies). If you are dying, look for someone else who picks up phones.

Today, I wanted to use the phone, but couldn’t find it. My total lack of responsibility regarding anything I own is baffling, I do not panic. I knew it must be lying on the floor of my car or my office bathroom. Humming a tune, I go my car and look around casually knowing that I’ll find it. Such is my arrogance. When I don’t see it immediately, the humming stops but the arrogance remains. I casually search the bathroom, my cubicle, the carpets, my boss’s pockets... still no phone.

As a last resort, I call my number thinking I would hear a faint ring from somewhere near.

Guy with accent: Hello!

Me (taken aback for the first time since this phone episode started): Excuse me, you have my phone.

Rude Guy: No no no.

Me (rolling eyes and checking number dialed): No? You are holding my phone, Mister. Where are you located? Longitude? Latitude?

Guy: No no no

Me (huge sigh): What do you mean, no?! I lost my phone two days ago and now you have it. You may want to have the charger and headsets too. Let me know where I could drop it off!

Guy (not lured by this proposition): No no no.

Me (thinking he had better vocabulary than my friend’s one year old) : You speak English?

Guy: Spanish. Si si.

Me (phew, that explains! Finally we were making some headway): Espaniol eh? Phone Que pasa? Numero mine. Police cops Gracias!! What is your name?

Guy: Rodhrrrigo. What is your name?

Me (He knows some English. Does he think I am trying to have a friendly conversation here?): I am Nancy Drew, nice to know you. Where do you work? Work?

Guy (finding solace in familiar English words): Chilis. You work in Chilis?

Me: No I don’t, Mr.Burrito, but I very soon will be in disguise working for Chilis to get that phone from you.

Guy: No no no.

That does it! I hung up on him and went scouting for a Spanish translator at work for me. John agreed to help out with his rusty Spanish.

‘John, we went dining at Chilis on Tuesday night and I feel I might have left phone there. Mr.Rodrigo has been using it to call a lot of people. He spoke to a girl in California for an hour!!! With my phone!! I found that from my phone company’s website. So please tell him that I will drop by tonight and pick up that phone. I can’t have him calling anymore people, I am running low on minutes. Tell him to use it only on weekends.’

We tried calling and it went straight to the answering machine. Either my cell phone ran out of charge or Rods got smart suddenly. I called my phone company, put the phone on hold so that it is not misused anymore. I also called Chilis and asked them investigate on their employees, a Mr. Rodrigo in particular. Yes, he gave me the name, I told them. They sounded very helpful (in English) and said they would get back to me later today.

Till then, don’t even bother calling. If you do see Rodrigo, teach him some English, will you?