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| Not the pic of the day. Read on. You'll discover why it's here. |
That's right.
Stolen.
I brought it in with me to Circle K. Herein lies my first mistake, as this is something I don't normally do. I was going in for the purpose of buying fountain drinks, and I sent The Geek a quick text asking him if he preferred Diet Dr. Pepper or Diet Coke. My second mistake was offering to bring him anything at all, which will become clear in just a moment. After I typed the text, I put it the phone on the counter. Third mistake.
Say you: Why didn't you just put your phone in your pocket?
Say me: I was wearing my workout clothes. They have no pockets.
Anyway. I had to carry TWO drinks from the fountain to the front counter to pay, which is not normal for me. Normally I only have to carry one drink (for myself) and then my other hand is free to grab my keys and phone, which I generally don't have with me but if I do have it with me I have five extra fingers with which to retrieve it. But if you're carrying two drinks, there's no extra hand space. A Thirty-two ounce drink requires the full attention of your hand and digits. Two thirty-two ounce drinks, therefore, requires the full attention of both hands and all digits, meaning there was little room for anything else. I'm lucky I was able to make room for the keys, let alone my phone.
You see where I'm going here?
It's The Geek's fault my phone was stolen.
Say you: It has nothing to do with the fact that you're old or you didn't bring a purse with you or you should have left your phone in the car or....
Say me: you digress.
So it's out there floating around. Realistically, whoever took the phone had the memory wiped within a couple of hours. Who knows, maybe they kept it for themselves. Before they wiped the memory, though, I'm sure they poked around. I can't imagine someone stealing a phone and then having the moral fortitude to not be nosy.
Do you realize all the personal information that is on my phone? It's a digital imprint of me and my life. Over the last 36 hours, the enormity of what was on that hard drive has crystallized. It goes beyond my music and my pictures. I had a ton of games on there, my banking information (thank God this was password protected), all of my contacts with their phone numbers, emails, my text messages, my search history on the internet, my Facebook account, some recordings of sounds that I made when I was abroad (the morning prayers that were broadcast every day in Istanbul was one of them.)
Oh, the notes! God, I use the note feature all the time for all kinds of stuff: my kids' social security numbers, books I want to read, music I want to listen to, a running list of good words to use in Words with Friends (Bastards. They could have gone in there and made plays on my behalf), friends' birthdays and anniversaries, my billing information from last week. Losing this information alone irritates the living daylights out of me. I hate having to go back and dig through my folder for patient information and making up mileage numbers for the nit-picky people at work who cut me mileage checks.
But the most egregious fact about this matter is not that I had to deal with AT&T both in person and on the phone yesterday and today, not the fact that I lost my expensive Otter box along with the phone, but the fact that I'm now forced to use my original iPhone with it's slow processor and nothing-better-than-EDGE-roaming-technology.
It's a travesty.
I did so many things wrong before my phone got stolen that I feel compelled to make a full-on Public Service Announcement. For your reading enjoyment, I offer you the Tanya Is Stupid list. You can
Tanya Is Stupid Because She....
1. Offered to bring her husband a fountain drink, which left no free hands with which to grab other stuff. Lesson learned. She's never bringing him one again.
2. Left the phone on the counter in a store. Don't do this.
3. Brought the phone in to the store with no purse and wearing nothing with pockets. Don't do this.
4. Didn't realize her phone was missing for at least an hour. Don't do this. Seriously. Pay attention.
5. Didn't password protect her phone. She used to, long ago and far away, but she found it to be a Grade AA+ (not AAA. She downgraded this hassle rating) pain-in-the-arse to type in a code every time she went to use the phone. No longer. If it gets stolen by someone who knows what they're doing, the password can be worked around to access the phone. It just takes much longer. And she doesn't want to make anything easy for some pilfering asshole in the future. Put a password on your phone. And then tell it to erase all data after 10 unsuccessful log-on attempts.
6. Didn't have any of the nifty little find my phone applications installed. Frankly, she didn't even know about them until it was way too late.
7. Hasn't synced her phone to the computer since last October. Meaning a lot of my info is simply gone. *Poof* Don't do this. Go sync your phone. Right after you put a password on it. On the upside of this, she was treated to pictures that she took last year for this project and then rejected, like the one posted up there. Interesting, to look at cast-offs several months later.
8. Didn't change her passwords on either her Facebook or email account that filters to her phone until just now. Don't do this. Change them immediately.
9. Didn't have the phone on any kind of insurance policy. None. Zip. Nadda.
Say you: You don't have on this list that you could just simply NOT purchase a smart phone. Then you save yourself a lot of heart ache by not getting too attached to it and not having all that personal information on it that some nefarious character could utilize.
Say me: Reality only on my blog, please.
Now, as the counter-argument to my Tanya is Stupid list, I offer you my Tanya is Smart list. Consider this the Fox News viewpoint of this particular entry.
Tanya is Smart Because She....
1. Didn't put her old iPhone on Ebay like she planned to because she is a AAA procrastinator (read: lazy). DO THIS! You never know if you're going to need it again. Besides, it may be worth something in twenty years, thirty, forty years.
2.
3.
4. (crickets....)
Say you: That's it? That's all you were smart about
Say me: *looking at you in irritated silence and pointedly ignoring the question*
On a completely different note, I still have the box. Meaning I still have the serial number. And I am a woman scorned. I know the phone won't make or receive calls any longer, but the device can still be used like a touch. I'm calling those "geniuses" at Apple tomorrow and am going to see if they can brick my phone remotely. They do everything else, right? Surely they can self-destruct. Preferably while the new "owner" is trying to use it. I doubt it though. It's probably jailbroken and on some black market website by now. But a girl can hope.
UPDATE: Apparently crime pays. There is no self-destruct feature on the iPhone. iTake great issue with that and personally think it should be a feature added to iPhone 5. Come on, Steve. Get with the program. James Bond had this technology back in the 60's. Man up! And let me be clear here: I'm not speaking metaphorically when I say "self-destruct". I mean I want a feature that you can access remotely that forces the phone to internally combust. I don't want anyone getting hurt, of course. You can make it so the phone starts glowing a bright red first as a warning. Within a minute it starts turning hot--so hot that a user is forced to drop it before it begins smoking and eventually explodes. Well, maybe I'm lying. Maybe I want people who steal the phones to get hurt. But nothing more than 2nd degree burns on their index fingers. And thumbs. And perhaps some singing of the eyebrows. But that's it!
Additionally, despite what the representatives at AT&T told me, the thieving cur who lifted my phone can actually use it as a phone. All s/he has to do is put in a new SIM card. Viola!
I have one word for you, Person Walking Around With My Uber Gizmo: karma. ->
3 comments:
"Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K." -- Ted, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", circa 1989
"Say Me: You digress" <- LMAO Too, too funny.
Deepest condolences on the disappearance of your beloved iPhone :'( However, I must admit it was nice to read a rant per you, been too long.
(Oh, how I do love reading a good rant by someone so witty every now and then)
Oooh almost forgot. Heard this saying a few years back.."Karma will be a bigger bitch then I'll ever need to be".
Ahh, you make me blush.
more rants on tap, as the picture project will not be a daily venture next round, but a weekly one. Interspersed will be my rants on daily living. In fact, I'm bagging one now for future use.
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