A senior moment.

Wednesday, September 3, 2025.
I was up early this morning. Got out of bed at 5 am, spent a little time on the computer. Dressed for the gym. Not to go for my daily workout. No, it was to check on my cellphone.

As I was ready to call it a day last night, I was prepared to plug in my electronic devices for the night: two iPads and my cell phone. They are usually placed side by side, plugged into the electric outlets via USB and USB-C ports. I unplugged the Waterpik dental cleaning device, which had finished recharging, to be replaced by one of the iPads.

It’s incredible how many standard devices are now electrically powered: cell phones, electric toothbrushes, tablets, and rotating brushes - the list is endless.

Panic, I couldn’t find my cellphone. I checked every room in the apartment, including the living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathrooms, and my study. Where could the phone be?
Two other likely locations were the pants I had worn that day, a pair of black jeans, and a bathrobe I had worn to the gym when I’d gone swimming in the afternoon. No phone to be found.

I checked the apartment and my clothes several more times to no avail. The phone didn’t show. I asked Barbara to call me from her cellphone. We usually do this when one of us has misplaced a cellphone. And it will reveal the location if it’s within a reasonable distance. The characteristic ring tone sounds, and the phone is located, sitting in a purse or briefcase, lying on the bed, or wherever it may be.

This time, no luck, Barbara’s call did not produce the familiar sound of my phone. She tried several times—same result.

I reactivated my landline; I usually disconnect it since the only calls are from vendors selling medicines, home cleaning services, etc., or real estate agents inquiring if I’m selling an apartment. Several tries with no results. The phone rang over, but it didn’t even go to voicemail.

Next, reflecting on where I had been that day and the last time I had used my cellphone. I realized that was around 1:30 pm yesterday. Barbara and I had just eaten lunch at Panama 66, an outdoor restaurant in Balboa Park, one of San Diego’s prime entertainment areas, located near many of the city’s museums and close to the renowned San Diego Zoo.

Before lunch, we had renewed our subscription to the Old Globe theater for the 2026 season and decided to grab a quick lunch before heading home. The lunch was mediocre at best, but my beer, an Irish ale, was just what I needed since it was a hot day.

I went to pick up the Prius from its parking spot and called Barbara to tell her I’d be on my way to meet up with her in 5 minutes. As she was answering the phone, I heard her voice through the speakers in the car, rather than through the phone itself, and put the phone back in my pocket. At least, that’s what I thought I did.

Having arrived home, I decided to have an afternoon nap, particularly since my stomach didn’t feel too good after lunch and I was low-energy.

I woke up around 4 pm and decided the best thing was to go to the YMCA gym for a swim to get reenergized. When I go to the gym, I usually wear a blue terry-cloth bathrobe, with swimming goggles in one pocket and my house and car keys, as well as my cell phone, in the other. Having returned home after the gym, I would have taken the phone and keys out of my pocket and put on easy clothes for the rest of the day at home.

Since the phone wasn’t in the pocket of the robe or the pants I had worn that day, I concluded that the phone must have been left behind in the pool area of the gym. It either had fallen out of the pocket as I had taken off or put back on the robe. Or, perhaps, I’d left it in a bathroom. I felt that the gym was the most likely location where the phone had ended up and decided to check at the reception of the YMCA the following day.

Another place where I had left the phone was in the car. Maybe I hadn’t put the phone back in my pocket, but left it on the small tray near the gearshift. I went to the garage downstairs, checked the tray, and didn’t find the phone. I checked the two front seats, the spaces between them, and the floor. Again, no phone.

Next, I decided to find out whether I could locate the phone using one of the internet-based location services. GeoZilla.com prides itself on locating any mobile device. It claims to have 25+ million users. I went to the site, typed in the number of the lost phone, and bingo, up came the message: Number located. I continued with GeoZilla and gave them my email address. An email message from the service requested a payment of $2.99 for three days. I decided to handle this and supplied them with a credit card. Kicker, before the transaction could be completed, I had to type a six-digit code that was sent to me. You guessed it: to my cell phone. I had reached a dead end with this service. When I phoned the customer service telephone number provided, I ended up with a representative at the bank that issued my credit card. He promised to help me bypass the request for the code, and for that purpose, he sent a message to my landline. No luck, I couldn’t use my credit card. Later, I noticed a message from the bank, asking whether the $2.99 charge was legit. I answered yes. If I had answered no, the credit card would have been deactivated, and I would have had to wait two weeks for a new card to arrive by mail.

I started the entire procedure with GeoZilla.com again, but was notified that the email address I supplied was already in use. Guess what, that was me registering shortly before.

I tried another service: FindNow (http://www.getlocation.com). The same story, I ended up paying $0.38 for the service using my PayPal credit card. But the same result; I could not locate the phone this way.

Final attempt. I went to my all-purpose AI buddy of last resort, ChatGPT, and asked what advice he could give me to locate the phone. Within a few seconds, I got a detailed response. The most valuable and immediate piece of advice was to use the Apple app ‘Find My iPhone’. Unfortunately, this didn’t work for me, presumably because I hadn’t set the service before I lost the phone. So, another dead end.

I finally gave up. I had spent a good hour and a half trying to locate and retrieve my cellphone. I would pursue some other routes the next day. For starters, I would go to the gym to inquire if my phone had been found.

If the phone had not been found in the gym, I would visit a local branch of T-Mobile, our cellphone provider, to find out if they could track my phone. And if necessary, to block it so no one else can use it. And ask them to blacklist the IMEI/serial number (so it can’t be re-activated).

I was done for the night and went to bed in the hope that the next day would resolve the lost phone issue somehow. The next day, I used the Apple app to display a 'Lost iPhone' screen message in case someone had found the iPhone. The message supplied the phone number of my landline and a request to call me. The content of the phone itself would be blocked, as the finder would not know the six-digit passcode.

So, back to the beginning of the story. I was ready to go to the gym to find my phone. That was the hope. I sat down to start the Prius and be on my way to the gym. As I was about to hit the power button and put the car in gear, my right hand automatically reached for the tray near the gearshift handle.

Surprise! My hand felt the iPhone sitting on the tray. It became clear to me what had happened the day before. I had started the car to call Barbara to let her know I was on my way to pick her up near the restaurant. As I heard her voice through the car speaker, I had put the phone in the tray since I had no immediate need for it.

After we got home, I had forgotten that I had not put the phone back in the pocket of my pants, and the phone had remained in the car. No wonder the phone did not ring in the apartment when we called my cellphone since it was not in the apartment, not in my pants, and not in the bathrobe.

I uttered a sigh of relief. A visit to the gym to search for the phone had become unnecessary. Nor a visit to T-Mobile, which meant standing in line waiting to be helped by an associate.

I removed the ‘Lost iPhone’ screen message from the phone and went back to business as usual. Later, I went to the gym for an aquafit class. In my bathrobe, my cellphone is in one of the pockets.

A senior moment had come and gone. I learned about location services and how to find a lost electronic device. Now, I need to incorporate a message in the phone that will enable location services in the future.

MvR – September 3, 2025. ✍️