Ikea Eats Phones

It is with much sadness that I enter this post.  Here is the tale of that sadness.

Last Saturday, my husband and a friend and I embarked on a day long adventure of shopping, the most vital stop being Ikea.  My friend is trying to set up her new apartment, and Anthony and I had a few more tiny items we were looking to add to our house.  We had been in Ikea for about half an hour when I pulled out my phone to pull up the shopping list I had saved there.  I passed the phone to Anthony to view it also, and that is the last time we remember seeing my phone.  Neither of us remembers if he gave it back to me or not, and we absolutely cannot piece together what happened to it.  Shortly after that, I set out in the Ikea maze to find a bathroom.  While waiting in the line, I reached for my phone to occupy my waiting time but it was not in my pocket.  I assumed Anthony had pocketed it after looking at it, and did not worry.  But as soon as I reached him again, I asked for it and my heart dropped into my stomach when he said no.  We quickly retraced all our steps, stopping especially where we had sat down and/ or spent a lot of time but no luck.  We asked every clerk we passed for the rest of our shopping trip, and Anthony retraced our steps one last time before we left.  That was a week ago now and it still has not been found, so I have very little hope it will turn up.

There are several reasons this makes me so sad.  Firstly, this was the first phone I had ever cared about and waited for.  My husband and his friends (the phone experts) started researching phones for me when I announced I had an upgrade looming.  They picked this one out based on my preferences, but the release day was months away so I waited quite some time for it.  It finally came out in October and I went that very day to get it!  Secondly, I had it for such a short period of time that I still want that one again, I'm not ready for a new phone yet.  Thirdly, all my pictures and texts and songs and notes and other personal items will never be recovered.  That makes me a little sad.  Fourthly, and this isn't something that makes me sad so much as will just drive me crazy, is that I will never know what happened to it.  Did Anthony give it back to me and I set it down?  Did it fall out of my pocket?  Was it stolen?  *sigh*

The part that hurts the most is the price tag - out of contract, that phone is almost $400!!  I refuse to pay that for a phone, but I don't want to wait 2 years.  We're still trying to work that out, but in the meantime I'm using Anthony's old 3G iPhone.  And I really don't like it.  I miss my phone very much.