Thank You, Liberty

Two months ago, I lost my mobile phone in Glasgow.

I noticed it was gone just after my first private lesson. I checked both pockets of my coat, emptied out my ratty old backpack, and later, searched through the glove compartment of our car in growing desperation, but the phone was gone. A thorough search of our flat was also futile.

"I must have dropped it," I finally told my husband. "When we got out of the car, I must have had it on my lap and it fell into a pile of leaves or mud."

My husband isn't known for his optimism. "In that case, you'll never see it again," he predicted. "Not in Glasgow."

Now, I'm no fan of mobile phones, but I've learned how useful they can be. On a trip to London to see my cousins, I'd been able to use my mobile as a camera and to stay in touch with my daughters and husband. I'd used it to arrange meetings with private students -- I'd even learned how to text on the damn thing, and I'd just managed to top up its credit all by myself. In fact, I'd been seriously considering letting my daughter show me how to access my email account from it. The more I thought about it, the more I missed it: the little wand thingy I used to punch out messages, the ceramic Korean cat dangling from it, its shiny new touch screen. I could practically feel the heft of it in my hand, the good, connected feeling it gave me when my daughters sent me texts. Losing it just about broke my heart; we could afford to replace it, but only just.

"Maybe someone picked it up," I said. "Maybe they found it, but they haven't figured out how to use it yet, so they can't tell me they have it." Even to me this sounded lame.

Days went by. I wondered what the finder had made of my phone. Obnoxiously pink, in a pink silk bag -- that was bad enough. But my husband and kids have wicked senses of humor: the ring tone they'd chosen for me was Merle Haggard's California Cotton Fields,. Half the names in my address book are Japanese -- my students and translating partner. There was a voice mail message from the mother of the middle school boy who I am teaching Japanese, a screensaver picture of our Turkish rescue kitten baring pointed little teeth in a cross-eyed snarl, and a scrawled message in clumsy cursive from my daughter : I love you mommy! Best of all, on the camera were several pictures of a grotty old vacuum cleaner on the landing in the cheap hotel where I stayed in London, plus a fuzzy shot of the underside of the scarred bedside table, studded with old pieces of chewing gum.

I knew that if I'd found my phone, those vacuum cleaner and chewing gum shots alone would have driven me mad with curiosity: What kind of a weirdo takes pictures of old vacuum cleaners and wads of chewing gum?

Almost a week after I lost it, I got a call from a young woman whose voice I didn't recognize. "I think I've got your phone," she said. "I found it in the street just across from Glasgow University."

I was so happy I forgot to take her number, but we arranged to meet in a few days, when I was next due to go to Glasgow. Her name, she told me, was Liberty.

"You really think she'll show up?" my husband said dubiously as he dropped me off in front of the library.

"She said she would."

"How will she recognize you?"

"I told her I'd have on a green scarf," I said, tweaking my green scarf.

"You'll need some cash," he said, "to give her as a reward."

I'd already thought of that. I had £20 in carefully saved £5-bills.

Liberty turned out to be a stunningly pretty girl who showed up exactly when she said she would. She handed over my phone with a smile and shook her head when I tried to give her the £20.

"Do me another favor," I told her. "Please give whoever raised you my thanks and sincere appreciation." She blushed and smiled and we waved goodbye.

So thank you again, Liberty, for finding my phone and getting it back to me. I'm going to learn how to access my emails on that phone if it's the last thing I ever do. And if we ever meet again, I'll tell you about those vacuum cleaner photos if you tell me how you ended up with that name.