How long can an iPhone last at -20 F? A "that's so Wasilla" moment

I still had my iPhone when I took this picture Sunday of Kalib back in his house after Rex's birthday. That phone has really become a part of me. My life is wrapped up in that phone. But it would soon disappear.

Look! Look! This guy has an iPhone! Is it mine? It must be! Mister, you better give my iPhone back, right now! 

Oh, wait a minute. I still had my iPhone when I took this picture. I was sitting in the passenger seat of Charlie's little car with Melanie at the wheel and we were stopped at a red light in Anchorage, watching penguins waddle by. This guy had called the head penguin and was telling her to get her birds out of the road, because he had places to go.

The penguins paid him no mind at all, they just continued to waddle by, one by one, until all 5,000 had passed through the light.

I would have taken a picture, but the penguins had posted a "Do Not Photograph the Penguins!" sign. I felt like my First Amendment rights were being violated, but penguins don't care about American law, the US Constitution, or the First Amendment.

They follow penguin law and penguin law only and they were carrying Ak-47's and shoulder-fired rocket launchers just perfect for blasting Charlie's little car right off the road.

I did not photograph the penguins.

This is where the story starts to get tricky. It was Monday afternoon. Thanks to these shingles and the fact that all my immediate work was out of the way, I hadn't done much but still I took my coffee break and went through the drivethrough at Metro.

I had my phone with me. On my way home, I saw this school bus stop on the road, red lights flashing. Naturally, I stopped, too. This dog came walking out to meet the bus. I was certain the dog had come to meet a student debarking from the bus. But the bus just sat there and the dog just stood there, for about one minute. 

Nothing else happened. Finally, the bus left the dog behind and continued on its way without a single student debarking.

Pretty strange.

After I returned home, I came out here to my office and got into my computer. After half-an- hour or so, I became aware that my iPhone was not in my pocket. I searched the area around my desk. It was not there. I searched every single place in the house that I had been. No iPhone. I searched the car. No iPhone. The weather had turned cold and I had been to the woodpile a couple of times, so I searched all around the woodpile.

No phone.

I called my phone in all these places and more. It did not ring. I called it with all the lights turned out, including the flash light. It did not glow.

I just could not find that phone.

Just before I went to bed, I did another outside search. I did not wear gloves. My hands are very cold conditioned and I can man my cameras bare-handed for long periods of time in zero degree F weather but it was well below zero now and pretty soon my fingers went numb.

So I built up the fire and headed for bed, making a stop at the bathroom to the master bedroom along the way. I could see my breath in there.

The next morning, yesterday, Tuesday the temperature here stood at -20 F (-29c) and it would stay below zero all day. I called my phone. It went straight to voice mail - this meant the battery had died. That meant that I had most likely lost it outside.

But where?

I did a lot of re-searching, both in places I had searched and in places I had not even been before the phone got lost.

Once, if you lost a phone, you lost a phone. Annoying, but no big deal, really. You just replaced it. But now when you lose a phone, you really lose something. Your whole identity gets wrapped up in that phone. There are notes and photos and recorded interviews and aps going here and going there and intimate notes sent back and forth to your wife written when you are separated from her and plenty of personal information.

Losing a phone has become a big deal.

Today, I slept in very late. I have turned the corner toward healing, but I am still battling these nasty, painful, shingles and I still need as much sleep as I can get.

When I got up, I found a note from Caleb. He had found my phone - wedged into a very strange place in the car where I swear I had looked myself. My theory is that the phone froze and so did not ring nor glow when I called - because I called it a few different times from within the car and never did it ring or glow.

But I have it now and life is okay, once again.

Now about the picture: yesterday afternoon I went to Metro one hour earlier than usual. I had not seen Carmen in two weeks, maybe more, because she leaves early these days to pick Branson up from school. So I dropped by a little earlier than normal.

When I pulled into the drivethrough line, there was big pickup truck in front of me, just one space behind the window itself. I could not see a car in front of the truck, so I reasoned that someone in a small car was sitting at the window in front of the truck, which I figured blocked my view of it. It was one of those trucks with a darkened back window, obscuring the occupants from view.

I sat there, waiting in line for several minutes, wondering when the order to the lead car that I could not see because the big truck was sitting between us would be filled and the line could progress.

Just as I was growing so impatient that I was just about ready to jump out and go up and see what was going on, a woman who I had never seen before walked out of the coffee shop, climbed into the truck and drove away. There was no smaller vehicle in front of her. She had just parked her car in the drivethrough line one space back from the window, left it there, went inside, made her order, and took her time.

Boy! This falls into the category of behavior that my daughters call, "That's so Wasilla!" It really isn't indicative of most Wasillans, but we have more than our share. Like all those times that you pull into a crowded parking lot and find someone has parked their big truck at angle across two spaces - sometimes three, if they can figure out how to manage it.

When I pulled to the window, I saw Shoshana and Carmen on the other side. They had wondered why it had been so long since anyone had pulled up to the window.

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Comments

[twain12]

OH MY...glad you found your phone :)

[debby]

I was going to suggest that those snotty Mahoney horses had something to do with the disappearance of your phone. Glad I didn't. Horses do not take wrongful accusations well. I'm afraid that you'd have paid the price.

I am so sorry about Margie, and your shingles, and all of it. You are having a trying time. But you are right. This too shall pass.