Les Bonnes Choses

I got to do a little detective work yesterday. I was waiting at the bus stop at the end of the day when I noticed a blue cell phone sitting on a concrete ledge. Nobody was anywhere near it, and by the time the bus rolled up to the stop, it was apparent that it had been lost. I know what kind of person I am, and I figured that the owner was better off having the phone in my hands than leaving it there for the next random person to find. So I grabbed the phone and tossed it into my backpack and boarded the bus.

Shortly after getting home, I took the phone out so I could try to get a hold of the owner. I encountered two problems. First, the device was unfamiliar to me, and, despite my proficiency with general purpose computers, when the functionality of an electronic device is limited to making phone calls, I am flummoxed. I would have been able to overcome the first problem more easily had it not been for the second problem: the owner of the phone was clearly proficient enough in Spanish to select that as the language in which all menu items were displayed.

Worst case, we have an undergrad in our lab who is a native Spanish speaker, but I felt that it was too early to give up, and fumbled around the menu. Fortunately, there are enough Spanish cognates of French and English that I was able to make enough sense of the interface to find the address book.

I had assumed, given the ratio of female to male names in the phone book, that the phone belonged to a female student. I didn't want to invade the owner's privacy more than necessary, and the owner's sex was irrelevant to my task anyways, so I didn't look elsewhere on the phone to find out. I tried calling a couple numbers with mobile phone icons, figuring that I'd be more likely to immediately get a hold of someone whose phone would reveal the identity of the mystery owner. Everyone had their cell phones turned off, it seems. I left a message with someone called "Dad".

Eventually, the phone's owner called the phone, and I was able to direct him to my house to retrieve his phone. I suspected the owner was an athlete, given the number of coach so-and-so entries. I'm not sure what sport he plays, but the guy was about 6' 2", and looked like he was from a Nautica billboard. No wonder he's got so many girl's numbers in there. I wonder how many of them know about the entry "bootycall".

Kids these days.