I sped across town, pulled into the parking lot and jumped out of my car. I was running late for a date with my dental hygienist. But when I grabbed my purse it felt too light. Uh-oh. That meant my cellphone wasn’t in it.
There was no time to search so I ran into the clinic, checked in and was in the hygienist’s chair before you could say, “why are you always misplacing your phone?”
While the hygienist prepared her equipment, I thought back. I’d been at a gathering at a friend’s house. I’d taken my phone out to set the date for our next one. Then I grabbed my purse and a canvas bag I had with me and rushed out. But I couldn’t remember what I’d done with my phone in the process.
Instantly a horrifying picture popped into my head and I gasped. The hygienist, who was by then examining my teeth, asked. “Do your gums hurt?”
They were fine. I gasped because I was imagining my phone lying in the middle of my friend’s street being crushed under the tires of a car. And then a bigger car. And then a truck. And then a semi-truck.
By the time the hygienist was cleaning my teeth I was estimating the cost of replacing my phone and thinking about how I needed to do it immediately because I was traveling later in the week.
How would I call a cab from the airport without a cellphone? How would I know my flight was delayed without text alerts from the airline? How would I reschedule my flight when I missed my connection? “Oh no,” I thought. “I’m going to miss my connection!” I gasped again. The hygienist said, “Is that tooth sensitive? Maybe that old filling needs replacing.”
Let me pause here to say I know what you’re thinking. My phone may have been just fine. I could have left it at my friend’s house. Or put it in the canvas bag I’d been carrying. Or laid it on the passenger seat of my car. No offense, but you lack imagination.
When the hygienist was finished I jumped out of the chair, checked out at the front desk and ran out the door. I intended to rush back to my friend’s house and pick up what was left of my phone because I was worried that a tech-savvy criminal could still get data from a crushed phone.
Before I let myself ponder the dangers of that, I opened the passenger side door and dug around on the seat. My phone wasn’t there. Then I looked in the canvas bag. It wasn’t there either. I raced around to the driver’s side and nearly tore the door off opening it. And there was my phone on the floorboard. So you were wrong. Fortunately, so was I.
Some people would say I was catastrophizing—imagining the worst possible outcome. But that’s hard to say and even harder to spell. Plus it sounds so negative. I like to think my imagination prepares me for the worst. And when the worst doesn’t happen, which it seldom does, I enjoy a wonderful sense of relief I’d never experience if all along I trusted that my phone was lying on the floorboard of my car. Or that the house was still standing because I hadn’t left the stove on after all. Or that thieves hadn’t walked away with my electronics because I did remember to lock the front door.
I savor that feeling after every bout of vivid imagination I have. And I have them fairly often. After this last episode, I took a moment to relax, give thanks and hug my phone.
Then as I drove away, I remembered that old filling. Uh-oh. What if it does need replacing? Or maybe I’ll need a crown instead? Or a root canal? Or dentures?
Dorothy Rosby is the author of I Didn’t Know You Could Make Birthday Cake from Scratch: Parenting Blunders from Cradle to Empty Nest and other books. Contact her at www.dorothyrosby.com/contact.