Only in Nebraska

by Patti

Every day that I leave my office to go home, it never fails that I get down the stairs and out onto the parking lot, only to turn around, climb right back up the stairs, and head back to my desk to retrieve my car keys. Or wallet. Or scarf. Or sunglasses. Or cell phone. It's gotten to the point that one of my coworkers, the one who usually witnesses those sheepish trips back to my desk, now asks me as I leave for the day, "Are you sure you have everything?"

Apparently, I'm kind of famous for that. Or infamous.

The other day I was in Nebraska for business. Yes, Nebraska! I actually drove down Cornhusker Highway and everything! Once we got to the meeting, I realized I had left my cell phone in the rental car. OF COURSE. Because, I told you, I forget things! I just made a mental note to get it after the meeting, and got down to work. After the meeting, my colleague had to stay behind for a few minutes to talk to somebody, so I told him I'd meet him in the lobby. I went out to the parking lot, eager to retrieve my phone and check messages, but when I got to the car, the cell phone was not where I remembered leaving it. Slightly panicked, I re-checked my purse and my portfolio; I checked under the seats; I checked the trunk; I checked the glove compartment. Of course, I had never even opened the glove compartment, but you know when you get desperate to find something and you hope against hope that maybe, just maybe you had opened the glove compartment and put that thing inside and just forgot that you did? EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW YOU DIDN'T? Yeah, no - it was not in the glove compartment. Confused, I even did a double-take on the car; after all, it was a rental car and I wasn't entirely familiar with it . Perhaps the real car was parked nearby, and my cell phone was safely waiting for me inside it. Alas, the rental car was electric blue, and the only electric blue car in the parking lot. In all of Nebraska, probably. So, I had the right car. Unfortunately.

Mystified, I headed back inside the office building and asked the ladies at lobby desk if anybody had turned in a cell phone. They shook their heads sadly, eyeing me with pity - that poor, screwed lady who lost her cell phone and every single contact in it - for the THIRD time in a year. I then retraced all of my steps, including visiting the bathroom, checking the stalls, the garbage can, the hand dryer... I walked the length of the building to the other side, where another lobby was located. I asked the security guard if anybody had turned in a cell phone. No, they hadn't.  Near tears, I headed back to the main lobby, and one of the lobby ladies offered to call my cell phone - you know, just in case? So she did, and as she stared hopefully at me, phone to ear, I started dumbly into my purse, waiting for it to ring. But it didn't, because my cell phone was NOT IN IT.

I decided to go outside and check the car just one more time because I apparently simply cannot face reality. Once again, I scoured the clearly empty rental car, and... nothing. Sighing, I slammed shut the door and began to head back, defeated. As I walked, I looked longingly back at the car, bidding a sad farewell to my obviously lost phone. And that's when I saw it: There, perched proudly on the roof of the rental car, glistening in the clear Nebraska sun, was my cell phone. It had sat there, silently, strongly, hopefully, all through my two-hour meeting and desperate, fruitless searches, waiting for me to claim it. Thrilled, I raced back to it, feeling like those lovers who run toward one another in slow motion in movies, and I grabbed my beloved off the roof, cradling it in my hands. We did a happy spin, my phone and I, in our own Nicolas Sparks movie. I ran back inside, laughing now, shaking my head at the sheer lunacy of it all. "You will NOT believe where I found my phone! I told the lobby ladies. "On the ROOF OF MY CAR!" We all shared a laugh, and I said to them, "You know, if I had left my cell phone on the roof of my car in Chicago? It would have been gone in ten seconds flat! Only in Nebraska!"

And then I got back on Cornhusker Highway and headed back to the airport, drawing a big, fat heart around Nebraska in my head.