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comment by WanderingEng
WanderingEng  ·  2681 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: November 23, 2016

Last week coming home from New York, I left my phone in the rental car. I got it back today.

The long version of the story is my flight was scheduled at 6:20 am. I set an alarm for 4:10, giving myself a comfortable 40 minutes to wake up, get ready and out the door to drop off the rental, check my bag and clear security. Well I wake up and see a text that my flight has been delayed, and I've been automatically rebooked. I wake up more and see I'm rebooked for ALB-ATL-DTW-MSN. Two layovers. I was able to rebook on my phone and found a 5:45 am flight. Once vacation is over, I just want to be home. Now 4:15 am, my mind grinds mental time math. I can make it. I'm out the door and checked out in a couple minutes. The airport isn't far. Despite knowing the way, I set my phone to give directions. The phone is wrong, and I ignore it. It's before hours at the rental agency, so I park the car, grab my bags, head inside and drop the keys in the before-hours drop box. Then I put my hand in my pocket. I know instantly what I've done, and I know the options are wait for the agency to open and completely screw up my flights, or just press on. I opted for the latter.

I put my phone into "lost" mode from my iPad, and by the time I land in Detroit I have a text (on my work mobile phone) saying they have my phone and will mail it to me (at my expense). I got my phone and aux cord back but not my car charger. The car charger was free, anyway, courtesy work.

On the scale of things that could go wrong, it worked out pretty well.