I woke up groggy in the Austin airport, my head aching from where I’d pillowed it on my lumpy backpack. My purse was close to me, our boarding passes for my family’s 5 a.m. departure tucked protectively in one side. Then one panicked thought jolted into my head: WHERE WAS MY PHONE?
Let’s backtrack: My husband, teen daughter and I were flying from Seattle to Cleveland for the April 8 total solar eclipse. Through a weird tangle of events, we missed our departing flight. The only new flight we could nab left us stuck from midnight to 5 a.m., sleeping on the airport floor in Texas’ capital city.
If you’ve ever planned a long-awaited trip for your family and watched it start to go wrong, you know my mind was pinging like a ball in a pinball machine. There were a million threads I was trying to weave together to save this spring break adventure.
And because it’s 2024, 999,999 of those threads required use of my iPhone. From rebooking the flight to alerting our hotel that we’d be late to locating our luggage, I was constantly tapping and calling on my trusty phone screen.
But I’d dozed off for 2 or 3 hours on the cold floor of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, and somehow when I woke, that phone was not in my hand, pocket or purse. Had I left it somewhere in our sleepy late-night trek through the airport? Was it perched on a bathroom sink or sitting on top of a vending machine? Or worse, had some early-morning traveler spotted it while I slept and made off with it?
Then I remembered: I was wearing my Apple Watch. Even though the battery was ticking worryingly low, it still had power. I pressed the side button under the digital crown. It brought up a screen of icons, including one showing a ringing smartphone. One press and I heard the most delightful sound my ears could hear, a sweetly persistent BING BING BING.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame played Dark Side of the Moon, Ain’t No Sunshine, and Here Comes The Sun during the eclipse.
Face it: We need our phones, even for celestial events
I don’t lose my iPhone that often. It’s usually close by, in my pocket or purse. But when I get that sinking feeling that I left it somewhere, I’m eternally grateful that one touch on my wrist can make it beep – as long as it’s close enough to me.
I’ve used other ways to find my misplaced phone, of course. I’ve asked my daughter or friends to simply call it to make it ring. I’ve beeped it from the Find My option on my husband’s phone. But the simplest and quickest way is to just press the button on my watch.
