The strange story of my phone

If you have been here long enough to know the story of the ball that escaped the kitchen of no escape, or the lens from my glasses that hid until ten minutes after I was notified the new ones were ready, this story might not surprise you.  For the rest, cue Rod Serling.


Consider Christopher Martin, an ordinary man about to take a nap.  He knows he must take his phone with him (as well as his dog and two babybel cheeses), because he is expecting an important phone call.  After pretending for two years that a mattress pad was really making a difference to the springs that poked him every night, he has ordered a new mattress and box spring.  Tonight, the call for the appointment time was coming.  So up the stairs he went, setting down the cheeses on the hall table and turning into the bathroom for a quick stop... into the Twilight Zone...

His story:  He returned from the bathroom, taking the cheeses in one hand.  He closes the door behind him and his faithful canine companion.  He approaches the bed, reaches into his pocket for the phone... and it is GONE.  Back out the door, he calls to his faithful female companion, "Is my phone down there?"  The answer is negative, and he rushes downstairs.  He had it in his pocket as late as when he was seated in his car to come home from work less than an hour before.  "Laurie, call my phone."  She does... not a sound.  He runs out to the car, opens the door, finds nothing.

A million thoughts race through his brain.  Telling each in turn to STHU, he asks Laurie to call work, set them on the search in case his memory is bad and he never had it in the car.  He decides to have Laurie call the phone again, thinking to search the car and the yard.  HE GRABS THE WRONG KEYS.  Turning back in, Laurie's phone connects, and it rings. 

AND THEY HEAR HIS PHONE THIS TIME.

His phone is loud enough that downstairs it can wake him from a light sleep upstairs.  It did not make a sound the first time, but now it does.  And he follows that sound to a spot on his bedroom booktable- right where he had intended to set it all along.

How did it get there?  He might have set it there himself... but that would have involved him setting it down, forgetting about it, taking one step back and fishing in his pocket for it a second time- IN THE SPACE OF ABOUT FIVE SECONDS.

Had he never had the phone with him?  He looks at his dog's picture on the wallpaper three or four times a day.  And even if he hadn't, he never leaves it in his bedroom.  Always downstairs near the computer screen.

And what about hearing one ring and not another?  Laurie speculated that she has had minor problems with her phone lately, and it might not have rang through.  Not only would that be a string of at least three convergent coincidences, his phone shows TWO missed calls from Laurie during the search.

Did a loving and merciful God know his plight, and send an angel to set it in the exact place he wanted it?  Far fetched, perhaps.  Read the story here about how a rubber ball made an almost impossible turn, hopping just right to be able to hide behind a refrigerator that you couldn't have gotten it behind in a thousand purposeful tries... or here for the story of the missing lens that showed up two minutes after the call form the eye doctor that new glasses are ready.  This place is MADE of far-fetched.  Is it any more far fetched than 5 seconds out of a life being so completely erased that I sat it there myself and cannot recall?

You decide.  Angel, household spirit... or just a madman's brief detour... into the Twilight Zone.