Chasing our iTail
On average lost cell phones cost Americans $30 billion per year. The average cost of a new iPhone 5s is $450. Cell phones are involved in approximately 50% of robberies annually. In an effort to combat cell phone theft, Apple and other phone companies started installing sophisticated new technology that would pinpoint a missing phone to its exact location. Well, almost exact.
The following is a true story. Names and details have been changed to protect the idio--- I mean, innocent.
It was about 2 am and we were leaving our local watering hole, which will be identified only by it’s initials “HH.” (Classy establishment) It was freezing rain and sleeting, so we ran into the first available cab we saw.
Now before I continue, let me backup and define who “we” were. In all our suburban shopping mall glory, we could be the real-life whitest kids you know. Jennifer and I debated at the beginning of the night if my outfit was more Aria Montgomery[1] or Carrie Bradshaw. Mark was sporting a button down Abercrombie number and was one popped collar away from leading rush week. But Trip demonstrated pride in his Anglo-Saxon heritage better than us all- with a sweater vest. Over a plaid shirt. (I can’t make this up.)
We gave the cab driver our address and he pulled out. (Normally, it is a $6 cab ride home.) Then I heard the phrase no one wants to hear at closing time, “I can’t find my phone!”
Jennifer had apparently lost her phone.
“Check your purse,” I said.
“It’s not in there! I’d see the light!”
Jennifer had quite a bit to drink that night, so I looked myself, thinking surely it was somewhere in the abyss where lip glosses go to die.
Crap, it wasn’t there.
We looked all over the car until she yelled at me to use my Find My Phone app. After six unsuccessful attempts at logging in, I finally got it.
“It’s still here!” I shouted gleefully as our taxi hadn’t turned the corner yet. “
“I’m gonna come fiiiiiiiiind it!” shouted Jennifer.
“You can’t even stand,” I retorted. “Mark, stay here and watch her. Trip and I are going in.”
Trip and I got out of the taxi and ran up to the door only to be blocked by a very large gatekeeper.
“You can’t come in,” the bouncer told us.
“My friend left her phone in here!”
“Then call in an hour. We find them about this time.[2]”
Realizing he wasn’t going to budge, Trip and I ran to the side of the bar and jumped over the patio railings.
“You can’t go inside,” another bouncer told us.
Trip began to debate this with him while I ran in the back door.
“Hey, get back here!” he shouted, clearly pissed that he had been outwitted by my clever maneuvers.
This left the door unguarded and Trip ran in the side. By this point, we were running parallel, yelling at each other to look for the phone.
“The blue dot says it’s here!” I shouted.
“I don’t see it!” he yelled back. “Refesh the app!”
I tried to refresh it as the original bouncer started chasing me through the bar.
“Wait! The phone is outside! Let’s go!”
Trip and I ran out into the freezing rain and crossed the street.
“It looks like it’s here!” I announced, frantically walking up and down the line of cars and taxis. Our taxi, meanwhile, had decided to circle the block.
“Try calling it!” he suggested.
“I am, you idiot!” I yelled back. “I’ve been calling!”
“Have you gotten an answer?”
“If I did, would I be talking to you?”
We stood there glaring at each other in the middle of the street until I realized that the blue dot had moved once again.
“Crap! It’s on the move! Go, go, get our cab! Run, white boy, run!”
Dodging cars, we managed to get back to our cab, out of breath and incoherently yelling at the cab driver to, “Move, move! The phone is around the corner!”
We pulled into the back parking lot and Trip and Mark jumped out of the car. “It’s here somewhere, guys!” I helpfully yelled from the backseat, drowning out Jennifer’s sobs.
Most of the cars in the parking lot looked empty except a blue Dodge and a silver Corvette, which we had pulled up next to.
“It says it’s right here and it’s not moving!”
“The driver is on a cell phone!” shouted Mark.
At this point, Mark and Trip went up and knocked on the Corvette’s window. The exchange went something like:
“Is that your phone? Yeah? Uh, OK, well, sweet ride, man.”
As they were interrogating the Corvette driver, the Dodge started to pull out. Mark tried to stop it, but the driver kept going.
“That’s gotta be them! They have to have the phone! That’s why they didn’t stop.[3]”
Mark and Trip jumped back in the car and yelled at the cab driver to follow them. By this point we were in hot pursuit of the car. It was confirmed that they had the cell phone because the dot kept moving in the direction of the Dodge.
“Follow them! Don’t lose them!”
At this point, we realized we were kind of driving into the ghetto.
“I’m gonna kill them!” shrieked Jennifer from the backseat.
“What are you gonna do?” asked Trip. “Let Mark and I handle this. We’re the men.”
Yeah, because I’m sure the thieves are going to be really intimidated by your Lacoste sweatervest, bro.
“Those assholes are gonna die!”
“We should go home and grab my gun.”
“There’s no time for that! They could take the SIM card out.”
“You’re right. Sir [to cab driver], do you have a gun we could borrow?”
At this point, the cab driver, an African American gentleman who had been driving taxis our city, which has one of the highest crime rates in the U.S., for 15 years, started to get nervous.
“Uh, do you think maybe you kids should call the cops?”
“No! Hell no! We’re gonna handle this ourselves.”
We did a decent job of maintaining our tail until we got caught at a light.
“Damn! We lost them!” Mark said from the front seat. (Up until this point, he had been doing an excellent job of motivating the cab driver to go faster by yelling, “faster, faster!” as we engaged the Dodge in our high-speed pursuit)
Jennifer started crying. “My life is on that phone. I’m never [sob] gonna [sob] ever be able to [sob]”
“Just hang on,” I said. “Let’s just see where the dot takes us.”
Trip, who was in the middle, leaned in and looked at the phone.
“Why does it say 30 seconds ago?”
“Because there’s a lag when the satellites try to triangulate the location, so they can’t locate it in real time yet.”
(I knew those seven seasons of 24 would paid off)
“What a piece of crap.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, the signal has to go TO F***ING OUTER SPACE AND BACK! I forgot, you’re an engineer, right? Why don’t you make something better?”
Trip yanked the cell phone out of my hand.
“Turn right,” he instructed the driver, who by this point, I was sure had alerted the authorities to our bloodthirst for the perpetrators of this crime.
“Where to?” he asked.
“FOLLOW THE BLUE DOT!” he yelled.
“It’s like they’re going in circles,” I said. “Just let the lag time catch up.”
After 30 seconds, I realized the phone hadn’t moved. “OK, they ditched it here,” I said, getting out of the car in the rain. By now, we were on train tracks in an abandoned warehouse district downtown.
Mark, Trip, and I got out of the car and looked around.
“Look, Jennifer,” Trip said, “If they dropped it, it’s gone. The rain…the trains…we’ll never find it.”
I walked towards to tracks, taking extra precautions with my ankle boots. I looked up and down the tracks. “Yeah, I don’t see any vagrants or anything, so I’m sorry, but it’s gone.”
Soaking and dejected, we got back in the car. “Just take us home,” I instructed the driver, who at this point, was more than happy to oblige us.
As we drove down Morgan, I noticed something. The dot was moving. It was always slightly behind us. As we turned onto Cliffside, I noticed it did too. I began to realize what was going on.
“Jennifer,” I muttered through gritted teeth, “The. Phone. Is. In. This .Vehicle. Did you look everywhere?”
She put her purse to the side and picked up her coat. Which was vibrating. And glowing.
“Um, I, um,”
“We’ve been driving in circles for half an hour and the phone was here the entire f***ing time?” I shouted.
“I don’t normally wear things with big pockets-“
I cut her off, reminding her that it was a good thing her pockets were very deep tonight, because we now had to pay upwards of $30 for a ride home. She sheepishly gave the driver her credit card and he ran it electronically and asked for her number so he could text her the receipt to where? Her iPhone.
Epilogue:
I now have Jennifer’s info saved in my Find My Phone app. As part of her probation with me, she will have an electronic leash attached to her at all times. Right now she is at home watching a Say Yes to The Dress marathon. (The app doesn’t tell me that- she’s just that predictably sad.)
Meanwhile, Trip is starting to look at ways to improve the efficiency of satellites. In his words, he wants to be able to know if his iPhone is up his ass. Which coincidentally, we’d all like to permanently affix Jennifer’s.