Be Careful What You Ask For

I have ‘heard’ myself say to several people lately, “I would rather lose my wallet than my phone”. I know better. I know we get what we ask for. And every time I said it, I cringed in that possibility. Yet I continued to say because I was also making a statement about my lifestyle.

I started a recent trip to the USA in the same way I usually do, catching the train from Newcastle to the International Airport in Sydney. I was headed for the Front End Innovation Conference in Boston. I am a guest at the conference so I blog and commit to social media activity while I am there.

An hour into the trip I discovered I didn’t have my phone. I let that reality play around in my head (and my stomach) for a few minutes before considering what options I had available. No immediate contact with my family, no ability to check emails quickly (I have my laptop but it’s not convenient for a quick check) and no ability to make quick social media posts. This aside from the fact that I have two major events happening that I am continuing to organise from the other side of the world.

There is an additional irony to this tale. Two days prior I had spent a couple of hours at the Apple Store while they replaced my phone. The phone had begun over-heating and switching itself off.

Act of Human Kindness (AoHK) #1. I asked the gentlemen sitting across the aisle from me if I could borrow his phone, explaining my situation. He didn’t hesitate to hand it over.

I phoned home (it was ridiculously early) because I couldn’t see through my ‘fear’ to ascertain if I had left the phone at home or in the taxi I caught to the station. My husband found the phone sitting on the bench where I had left it so I wouldn’t miss the text the taxi driver was going to send when they arrived. In an ironically synchronous moment, the taxi arrived as I wheeled my belongings to the front door so I began my journey forward without looking back.  At the bench. And my phone.

We discussed options; buying a phone at the airport; buying a phone in the US; who was leaving for Sydney that morning, or rather immediately (that one was “clutching at straws”, the origins of that saying perhaps a tale for another day). He decided to drive the phone down. Think for a moment what this meant. Outside of the wasted hours he would spend driving, I had no phone. Somehow we had to maintain contact.

AoHK #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 and #7 took place over the next few hours. He made the trip down the highway in good time. ETA at the airport 8:15am. I wasn’t boarding until 9:30am. All would be good with the world. Expect, of course, for the gridlock of traffic he encountered just before the turnoff to the airport. From that point on I found a kind stranger every 15 minutes who allowed me use of their phone – one even twice. And during a couple of the phone calls, the only message was that he hadn’t moved. At all.

Some might say that allowing me to use a mobile phone in the days of unlimited calls and texts is no major sacrifice. Sacrifice no, but trust and an act of empathy yes. Seven people took a chance that I didn’t have ulterior motives, that I wasn’t going to run off with their phone and that I wasn’t setting them up for something more sinister. But here’s the thing. The only person who refused my request actually didn’t have a phone and asked the stranger next to him if I could borrow his.

So if you find yourself reading this and you remember a dark-haired woman on a Sunday morning at Sydney International Airport asking if she could use your phone, I thank you.

Everyone wished me the best and hoped my husband would make it.

And I knew that he would. And he did.