The Fredösphere

So my wife "lost" her cell phone, which happens from time to time. This time we hadn't found it in over 2 weeks and I was starting to get annoyed/worried.

On a whim, I called today and it RANG. Now a cell phone doesn't ring unless it's connected to the network. It goes straight to voice mail otherwise. After ringing for a while, it went to voice mail....

At this point, my first thought is that a Good Samaritan picked it up, dusted it off, plugged it in, and was hoping someone would call to claim it. So I called back. A male voice answers and the conversation goes something like this:

"Hey! You have my wife's phone!" I say.
"Huh?" he says
"You have my wife's phone! Awesome! Who are you? Where are you?"
"Who is this?" he asks
"This is Jeremy"
"Who's your wife?"
"She's Jackie and you have her phone"
"Jackie?"...

Er... Huh? What just happened? Immediately I call back, assuming we've been cut off. The call goes to voice mail after one ring.

OKAY, I think... The phone was stolen. But it wasn't stolen by someone smart.... It was stolen by someone who would actually PICK IT UP.

Now I'm on a mission. I'm curious who this guy is, where he is, how he wound up with the phone, etc. Guess what? AT&T has a new feature: FamilyMaps! I add Jackie's phone to the plan (free for 30 days thank you!) and quickly locate the culprit to within 1/2 a mile. HE STILL HAS THE PHONE ON.

Well, now that I have some idea that the phone is still within 15 minutes of home, I figure I might as well try to call the guy back. The second conversation is even more odd:

"You have my wife's phone, I'd like it back" I say
"Who are you?"
"Jeremy"
"Who is your wife?"
"Jackie"
"You want to know how I wound up with this phone?"
"Listen, I really don't care too much how you wound up with the phone, I'd just like it back, no questions asked"
"You don't care?"
"Hey, I'll even throw in a $10 finder's fee"
"$10? I have to come up with $40?"...

Once again... Huh??? Why did he hang up? What $40? I personally figured that paying him $10 to get the phone back was fine since the phone insurance deductible was $50 so anything less than that and I'm saving money.

So some time passes... I'm not entirely sure what to do. He isn't calling back, he keeps hanging up... How to I converse with this guy?

LIGHT BULB: Text message.

So I sent the following:
"You have 2 options:
1) I call the police
2) You give me back the phone, recover some of your losses, and you're free and clear."

He responded with (and I quote):
"Yea can cum get da phone"

Okay! Now we're getting somewhere! I ask for his address or a place to meet. He responds with:
"Meet me n west willow on calder ma dads is a state police just 2let ya knw n he is wit me rite knw n a under cover car so cum on"

In English:
"Meet me at the West Willow Church near Calder St. My father is a State Police Officer just to let you know, and he is with me now in an under cover car. Make haste."

Now I have a place to go! Woo hoo! So, I went. I personally figured that if he had to make up something about a State Police officer father, he was probably more scared than I was.

So I headed over with $10 in my pocket. It turns out that West Willow Church isn't ON Calder, nor is there a street named West Willow, but I called our friend and he directed me once I got to the neighborhood. Remember, I knew where he was because of FamilyMaps :-)

I pulled over to the side of the road near where he was standing, popped out of the car, and said:
"Hi, thanks for meeting me"
"This is your phone?"
"Yes, my wife's"
"You sure?"
"Yes, quite sure"
"You got my money?"
"I do. Here you are" at which point I pull out the $10 and hand it his way. It's about here that I notice the switchblade knife he has in his other hand. Blade out. "$10? You said $20" he says
"No, I said $10" and I leave the money extended.
"You sure this is your phone?"
"Yep. What's the knife for?"
"Just so you don't try anything funny"
"Ah"
"Take off your shirt!!"
"What?"
"Take off your shirt!"
I realize he wants to check me for a WIRE. Now I don't know what TV shows he's watching, but wearing a wire to catch a guy who has a CELL PHONE? Seems a bit much. I lift up my shirt, but don't remove it.
"Nothing there" I say
"This really your phone?"
"Sure is"
"Ah hell, I don't care" and he takes the $10 and hands me the phone.

It's pretty obvious he's scared out of his mind... So I figured I might as well see if there's anything more interesting to the story of how he came about having the phone. I presume most of it is made up, but the story he told is that "some guy" was going to prison and asked him to hold on to his phone while he was there. Our pal, being the nice guy he is, said "sure thing" and proceeded to make about 500 minutes of phone calls on it :-) He also answered quite a few calls for "Jackie" and was kind enough to inform them that she no longer had the phone.

He asked me if the guy who went to prison was my son. Since Cameron is 9 years old and at school, I was pretty confident with my answer of "no".

We parted ways. I never got his name, I never even asked.

So there you have it. My cell phone adventure.

The phone itself was in great shape. It had been completely wiped of anything related to Jackie and had a new address book for people like "Tay" and "Dads". I promptly reset the phone and now Jackie is going to have to answer calls for our friend for the next several weeks.

Oh, and I never did see his dad, though maybe he was VERY undercover.

Sorry for the length. I think I remembered all the good stuff :)

Jeremy

Labels: fun, local