Department of Silver Linings
My phone was stolen on Monday.
I was distracted at the time, so I wasn't 100% sure it was theft because anybody can do stupid shit when distracted. But I was like 98% sure, because I hadn't gotten far from the point of loss and my phone was absolutely, positively, completely not there. It had a bright pink flip cover, so it's pretty hard to miss.
So I filed a report with my insurer to start the process of getting a new phone. I tried to file online, but their website kept giving error messages toward the end of the data entry process. I tried a different browser, just in case, but got the same file error message. So I had to file by phone. I reported the error message through an online webform (that worked fine) and then called Assurant. That seemed to go fine, and the operator told me that she would e-mail me a "Proof of Loss" form and instructions for same, because when you file a loss/stolen claim you have to say "Mother May I?" while froghopping widdershins on one foot, and seal an oath in blood, as protective nostrum in case you're trying to pull some scam on the insurance company. The form was supposed to come within 5 minutes to an hour. Never arrives. So I go online again, requesting a re-send. No response. I guess I could have called again, but by this time they had worn me down for the day.
Next morning, I finally get an e-mail response to my request for a re-send of the "Proof of Loss" form saying the form had already been sent. Hmm. Back in my e-mail in-box, yes, yes it had. Whole seconds before the response to my online request. Once I open the form attachment the scales fall. Apparently, the woman who took my claim misspelled my name and so by extension presumably spelled my e-mail address wrong. Original send got lost in the ether. No, by the way, it wasn't my first name she got wrong. I always spell that for people. She misspelled "O'Brien." Oh, Eff me.
So it was Tuesday before I completed filing my insurance claim, and paying the usurious deductible. The Fairy Godmother Department finally gets off the bench and the replacement phone shipped out the same day, arrived yesterday. Whereupon Practical Jokes tags in again for a final go: when I called T-Mobile to transfer my number to the new SIM card, get transferred three times and put through multiple identity confirmation confirmations, it turns out that the final confirmation involves texting a verification code to me, and they can't text that to the phone I'm activating the SIM card on so if I don't have the other phone on the account nearby (I don't, it's Hal's, he's at work) they can't send it and I'll have to go in to a store to activate. Wowsers. What do people with only one phone on their account do? Go in to the damn' T-Mobile store, I guess.
By this time, it's gotten to be just after 8:00 and the local store (naturally) closed at 8:00 sharp. So, I hie me out into the freezing gale and drive up to the East Hill store where, thankfully, the activation process is quick, simple, and painless.
Also, thankfully, I for some inexplicable reason decided to charge my new phone on the kitchen counter last night, rather than in the more usual spot on the bed stand right next to my head. That was lucky because around 1:00 in the morning, some woman acquainted with the guy who has my phone started calling my cell number at intervals throughout the wee hours. The one I actually answered came in at 6:15 but there had been a half dozen before it. I explained to her, and the next caller for the same guy, that the person they were trying to reach had my stolen phone but now that I had replaced it and wrested back control of my number he could no longer be reached at it. Asshole. So at least now I'm 100% sure it was theft.
But this started out as a post about silver linings. There are silver linings. For one thing, it looks like eBay can cough up a replacement OEM S-View flip cover case for the replaced phone, and that makes me happy. I really prefer the S-View style because it has a handy little window you can see the time and weather through even when the cover is closed. But the really exciting discovery as I was downloading apps and setting them up to achieve something like my preferred configuration was realizing that all the handwritten notes in S Note that had been on prior phones and I had thought lost forever turn out to be archived in the cloud by Evernote. I didn't realize the two applications talked to each other. A whole host of little scribbled story ideas and observations that I could never have reconstructed in a million years are mine again. So there's most definitely that. Which enables me to share this tidbit of business:
Misheard from an eavesdropped conversation at the pub meet: "Prostituting attorney."
"They wear the really big wigs."
"And glitter. Lots of glitter."
Here's to finding glitter linings.