A Kind Man of Mystery - A Ray of Sunshine
Updated: Nov 21, 2022
On November 10th we were on our way out to dinner when, somewhere along the way, I lost my cell phone. It's amazing how panicked we get when we lose these modern appendages that are never far from our side.
We retraced our steps to no avail. So we bit the bullet** and purchased a new phone. As I'm sure many of you are aware, this can be a pricey undertaking!
Okay, so here's the really cool part - Six days later on November 16, both my son and husband got the same text simultaneously via an unconventional texting method.
The message said - in short - "I have your phone"..... SAY WHAT?!?
The actual text was much longer than that. Because my emergency contacts can be obtained on the front page link, the "Man of Mystery" was able to track down the owner of said wandering cell phone via messing by way of my emergency contacts.
Now the interesting part was he and my phone were in Huntington Beach!! My phone, however, lives in San Diego. We had an awesome phone conversation with this honest man who did not want to identify himself, and he agreed to send it out priority mail the next day.
So how was it that he, of all people, found my phone in this busy parking lot? As it turns out he just happened to be in town on business and having dinner at Old California the same day that WE were having dinner at Old California!
He happened to notice a cell phone laying on the ground in the parking lot. He took it inside and asked the Receptionist if anyone had reported a lost phone - she knew of no such report. So he took my little traveling phone back home with him to Huntington Beach. It was important to him to keep it safe and return it to it's rightful owner. - Wow!
We offered to pay him for his efforts, but he wanted nothing more than to return the phone. His comment was that it was "a beautiful little phone". I am assuming that he said that due to the photo that graces my lock-screen.
I was in shock and awe that someone cared that much to track us down and get it safely back to us - aka Me! In addition, he sent it with the sweetest card tucked inside the box.
"The "other guy" that he was referring to was the new phone of which I wasn't all that crazy about.
There is a down side though, and it is this: That to this day he remains anonymous and I most probably will never know who this kind stranger was.
So I'm hoping some day he will "coincidentally" return to Old California again the same day we do. I wouldn't know his face, but I would recognize his voice.
** To bite the bullet is to “accept the inevitable impending hardship and endure the resulting pain with fortitude”. The phrase was first recorded by Rudyard Kipling in his 1891 novel The Light that Failed. It has been suggested that it is derived historically from the practice of having a patient clench a bullet in their teeth as a way to cope with pain. (Wikipedia)