"It's all in the reflexes..."

Working Saturday's is a perk, you get time and a half and usually you just pick up city cans in a specific area, they however are not that fun, full of gallons of outdated leftover coffee that usually goes down your sleeve or on your pants. You smell worse than other heavier days.

I was fortunate enough to work one last week when it was pissing down rain. I was also fortunate enough to get a truck that had right side drive and was low entry. Since the cans are all on the right side of the street as you drive, and because there is little worse than getting in and out all day long from a truck that is high entry and having to walk around to the can while dodging cars, it is a job initself.

On this particular route we have to do the (name removed) Street Clean Up. This is where at a particular time of day we drive down said street and pick up everything that the folks in chinatown put out or manage to throw into the truck when you are not looking or just bent over. It's pretty sketchy, boxes full of dead and spoiled sea creatures fly just at head level and at most times I am much taller than most of these residents so you can imagine the amount of close calls I encounter in three whole blocks.

Tword the time I was to begin the clean up, while turning a corner my mom calls, seeing that she was driving home from a solo trip from Washington I thought it wise to answer and make sure she was doing OK. She was, and in the rush to get back to work I put my super awesome, big buttoned, music playing cell phone in my shirt pocket without buttoning it.

After dodging crab meat and god knows what else I back into a super tight alley and collect more garbage, most of which has me bending over to pick up any and everything that may go. After the alley was done I took a look at my map to see what I had left, map was gone. Pretty awesome, right? Maybe I should call my friend that was also working who had done this route a bunch and ask him how much I had to go from where I was, phone gone too? Serioulsy? I have never lost a phone before and no matter how many times I patted myself down it never showed up.

Once one looses their cell phone they begin to realize just how much the have come to depend on it, sort of like breaking a limb. Then once you get over that you get to cone to the realization that pay phones are a thing of the past. It is like a scavenger hunt trying to find one.

Soaking wet, tail between my legs I ask the firemen at the fire house and they allow me to call my phone and leave a pleading message to whoever had it now. No recovery of course. Take a look at the list of things I have found (see below). I guess its time I make and expensive deposit into the Karma bank.

Please excuse the longwindedness, trying to make up for lost time...