Sounds of the Concourse / My Lost Cell Phone

This fall I let 100 days pass between trips out past the big blue mustang, to the Denver airport. But now I’m traveling again. I guess I was kind of eager to get away for the weekend this time… Two hours before flight time, I was already at my gate.

So I logged onto the airport wireless (free, if a tad bit unreliable) to play around on the Internet. And, I wrote you this poem. Er, poem-ish thing. Sorry. I’m a writer, but not that kind of writer. Anyway, all disclaimers aside, here ‘tis.

Sounds of the Concourse

Crowds in halls and courtesy calls
Suitcase wheels and business deals
Weary sighs and baby cries
Kiss goodbye, prepare to fly

I always wonder if as I go
I’ll hear a voice I used to know
Or catch a glimpse of some old face
Familiar from some other place

To fly alone still has its pleasures
The independent, easy measures
I stop and browse or stride ahead
Go where I like, or as I am led

Caution! moving walk is nearing its end:
Please watch your step!

My Lost Cell Phone

As I got off the plane in Atlanta, I reached for my cell phone and found it missing from the coat pocket where I’d left it. Now, some of you might panic, and think that I, as a somewhat high-strung person, might do so as well. But I felt a strange mix of relief and guilt over the matter. You know I’m not too fond of phones of any kind. Perhaps I’ve been hoping that mine and I could somehow be parted? At any rate, it turns out that this is the case.

I waited for the plane to unload and went back to look, but my phone was nowhere to be found. So I guess I should still check at the lost and found when I get back to Denver before writing it all off together.

I’m tempted not to replace it. Hmmm. But probably the world has moved too far in the cell phone direction to let me make such a choice without facing its aghast, mystified disapproval even more than I felt about three years ago when such tensions brought me into the cell-phone-using world. (I had a group of friends at that time who thought it was terrible that I didn’t have one. Strangely enough, most of those people moved away or somehow slipped out of my life, without even calling, not long after I got the one I have. Had.)

What do you think, can I go cell-phone-less for a while? Or is it back to Target to pick up another pay-as-you-go, $15/month model like the one I lost? Surely I need nothing fancier or more expensive. I used the thing very little.

Well, consider this a public service announcement. If you - strangely enough - are dying to talk to me, you'll have to send an email instead. I'll be watching. (Now THAT, I'm addicted to!)

We had a funny conversation at work after that plane semi-crashed at the Denver airport recently. It went off the runway and caught fire and everyone had to be evacuated. We wondered if there was some kind of statistic about how many people really follow the rule about leaving all carry-ons behind. Would you?

I would be sorely troubled about leaving my laptop there to burn up.