On Monday afternoon, my phone and wallet were lost and subsequently stolen.

It usually takes me about 16 - 17 minutes to bike home. As soon as I got home and searched my pannier for my phone in order to stop my activity tracker, I realized that my phone/wallet were gone. I turned my pannier inside-out, Dean called the phone, it was no where to be found. I called back at work in case I dropped it in the parking garage and they agreed to search. In the meantime, I got in the car, went down there myself and looked, then drove the route that I had biked.

No phone.

I was preparing to start walking my bike route when I checked my credit card statement online. The card had been used three times. Fortunately, we were instantly able to halt those charges, one of which was $499 to some unknown online company and one of which was at the gas station near our house. At this point, I gave up searching, I knew that someone else had my wallet and phone.

I freaked out. Yes, I was upset about losing the cash, credit card, drivers license and building scan card, but mostly I was upset about losing my phone. Not only because it was the most expensive thing I’ve bought for myself in years, but I used it for checking people in at work, for marketing, for some Zoom and Facetime clients… just about every aspect of my daily life. I am also one of those people who has never purchased the extra iCloud storage. I have always been able to keep the photos and videos on my phone down to a reasonable amount. As soon as it was posted online or stored elsewhere, it was deleted from the device.

Here’s me sitting in line to get my new drivers license. I decided I deserved a big coffee.

Until Jake got sick. I was afraid to delete anything with Jake in it. I wanted to make sure there was a copy of it somewhere. Any movie I took of him, no matter how minor, was saved from deletion. The photos started building up. I promised myself I would pare them down, and I let the phone skip backups. It’s been on my to do list. It got worse when the kittens came. How can I not take a billion pictures of them? They’ve grown so fast I now have pictures of them from a few months ago that I’ve never posted anywhere, but I don’t want to delete because they already look so different. Losing those photos was devastating. I cried.

I had a few breakdowns and stalked around saying, “I don’t know what to do now!” It was sad because the kittens were excited for me to be home and wanted me to hold them and I was freaking out. I got on Dean’s phone to call Apple Care and see what my insurance could do for me. In a word, nothing, since I had nothing of the phone and could not find it on FindMyiPhone. (When I had cracked my phone screen and exchanged it with the insurance plan, I had had to turn off FindMyiPhone to trade in the old phone and it must have stayed off.) I was going to have to just buy a new phone if I wanted to have a phone.

I was able to cancel the credit card and dispute the charges. I also called 311 to report the theft and fraud and they said they would have the police call me back. Dean and I were getting ready to go get gas in the car with my other credit card (the only one we now have between us, since the joint card was the one that was lost) and Dean called my phone one more time just for the hell of it.

Someone picked up.

His name was Jeff and he had found my phone in the street in front of his house. He lived less than three blocks away from the gas station where my card had been used. We swung by Starbucks to get this miracle man a gift card before heading his way.

When we got there, he refused the gift card. Three times. He said we’d been through enough and to keep it for ourselves, then he invited us up to his house for a cocktail. (We were masked.) We met his husband and their friend who was over and they made us Old Fashioneds.

They were out walking their dog when a man on a bike waved them down and asked if it was their phone in the middle of the street. He said it looked like a nice phone. Jeff said it wasn’t theirs but he would take charge of it and see if he could locate the owner. He tried to Facebook one of my clients who he saw had texted me (he could only see the name) and let him know that he had my phone and when he had texted, but this particular client rarely checks his Facebook. He kept the phone plugged in and on and waited for someone to call.

My Runkeeper had been going the entire time, so once I was reunited with my phone, I was able to look and see where it had been in the four and a half hours that we were separated. From what I am able to piece together, it looks like I started the Runkeeper, then slid the phone into my pannier as I generally do. The pannier is deep and the phone is usually at the bottom of it by the time I get home. The only thing I can think of is that it must have landed standing up on top of my lunch container and stayed there for the first mile and a half of my ride, because it looks like perhaps I hit a bump and it fell out somewhere around 3rd Avenue and Monroe. That’s a guess because that’s where it deviates from my route.

So someone picked up my wallet and decided to try and use the credit card. Either they were walking, or driving behind me and saw it fall out. I know that they were in a car, not just because they tried to get gas, but also because they left a picture of their crotch on my phone and I can see that they were sitting inside a car. I am guessing that they saw it fall out and picked it up because of the split times. The first mile was a normal pace for biking, the second mile speeds up TREMENDOUSLY as if someone was in a car and went one mile in 37 seconds. The third mile is also pretty quick, then the fourth mile encompasses the rest of the time. This really pisses me off, because they could have caught up with me in their car and given it back easily, but instead actively chose to screw someone over.

Now, every thirty minutes, my Runkeeper will let you know how many miles you’ve gone. It looks like after they grabbed my phone, they decided to get gas with my credit card, then drove around the back of the Kroger while trying to make a $500 online purchase before heading up Madison where they decided to toss the phone (keeping the wallet, thankfully they are able to be separated). I’m guessing that they couldn’t figure out how to turn the phone off and didn’t want to be tracked, so got rid of it.

Here’s the guy who stole my wallet. Taken at 3:36pm.

I have several things to be thankful for.

For one, I keep two wallets. The one that was with my phone holds things that I might need frequently. My ID, a little cash, my work keycard and the one credit card that we use most often. I also had a business card tucked into that wallet. So had they really wanted to return it to me, they easily could have just taken the cash and either brought the wallet back or just left it where it was. I would have found it. Fortunately, my other credit card and all of my insurance cards are in the other wallet that I use less frequently. So Dean and I have at least one credit card with which to buy groceries and gas until the new ones come in. I’m thankful for that.

I’m thankful that I splurged on an expensive wallet/phone case. Although I only have half of it now, had I still been using my previous wallet, the phone would not have so easily been separated from the case, which means they likely would have just tossed the naked phone out of the car and it would have been damaged. As it is, I have my undamaged phone back.

I was able to freeze my credit in case of identity theft, stop the charges before they went through and it was a beautiful day out when I stood in line for an hour to get my replacement license. The police also have two reports, one for the theft and one for the fraud, so if my old ID ever comes up again, it has my old address and they know it’s not ‘me’.

There are good people around who will hold your phone for you, refuse a reward and then give you a drink. Meeting people has obviously been tough lately and we’re so lucky to have met some new ones through these ridiculous circumstances.

So thankful that I don’t have to cough up the money for another high quality phone. It has been soooooo helpful during this pandemic when everything moved online. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t patted myself on the back for purchasing it. It’s made life a lot easier and I’m glad that it’s still with me.

My photos. My memories. And yes, I will actually make time to go through them this weekend.

I’m thankful for the lesson.

I’m also thankful for the fact that the police called me on Thursday evening and asked if I had lost a license. When I told them that it had been stolen, they were quite pleased. They said they had a suspect and had found my license in their car and they had tried to claim that they had given me a ride somewhere. I said no, and that I could give them the police report number for the theft, the map of where my phone had been that day and also a crotch shot of the individual. He said he didn’t think he could identify anyone from a crotch shot and I said, well, you can see his ankles and his acid washed jeans. He said, “You know what… send me what you have!” And so I did.

He called me back once more to ask about what time I made the police report and that’s about it.

I’m thankful that my license is no longer in the hands of the people who stole it.

Mostly I’m thankful for this reminder of what’s important.

Lessons in loss, material and symbolic