REPLACING MISSING TILES

I tend to lose stuff. Once, I lost a cell phone and found it in the freezer. Then, I misplaced my wallet and found it at the bottom of the dog food canister. There is a logical explanation for both of those incidents—sort of.

My wife has told me many times that I am clearly a loser. She’s witnessed many of my misplacements, so I accept that label. But when her mother first met me, she told Mary Ellen I was a loser. She knew that after one visit. How perceptive.

To prevent further device separation, I bought a Tile. This ingenious product, about the size of a credit card, slips into your wallet and allows you to discover where you left your billfold by looking at a GPS map posted on your phone or computer. The screen gives the exact location of your valuables. Your cell phone also makes a beeping noise as you get closer to where your wallet is hiding.

The problem was that when I sat down anywhere, the pressure on my wallet in my pocket against the chair set off the Tile: BUZZ! BEEP! You’ve heard of a butt call. This was a trouser arouser.
This sound confirmed that my wallet was nearby. Of course, it was nearby. It was in my pants. This was an unnecessary alert. And very annoying. It kept sounding off one morning at breakfast until my friends asked me to remove the Tile from my back pocket and place it on the table. An hour later, I walked out of the restaurant without my Tile. I didn’t realize it was missing until the following week. I had no idea where I left it.

Later that evening, my wife and I were headed out for dinner, but I couldn’t find my wallet. Mary Ellen said: “Why not use your Tile to locate it?”

“I lost my Tile.”

“Wait a second. Are you telling me you spent $50.00 on a device to find your wallet and you then lost the device you bought to find your wallet?”

“Yup, you nailed it.”

“Now what are you going to do?”

“I am going on Amazon to see if they make another techie item that I can buy to find the Tile that I bought to find things I can’t find.”

Later that week, I was fiddling with my phone. Suddenly, I got a prompt that said, “The last time you used your Tile was at Another Broken Egg Cafe three weeks ago. This is where our group meets for breakfast. I leave things there all the time, except a tip (just kidding).”

I retrieved my Tile from the café and discovered the battery was low, which is not rechargeable. I bought a new Tile and asked my AI program what to do next. They gave me a dozen steps to replace the dead tile with a fresh one. Years ago, I had an uncle who had a problem with booze and went for help. His Twelve Steps were probably easier to follow than the twelve I got from AI.

After Christmas, I returned a few items at a local department store and did a little browsing.

 “Can I help you find anything?” the clerk asked.

If he only knew.