Episode #5: Lost Cell Phone (Again) This Time In Las Vegas

  

A number of years later, in February of 2018, I was in Las Vegas at an industry trade show for a few days. The first night there was the end of a long day and I was very tired. I had a vendor visit and meal at the restaurant in the Bellagio Casino Hotel. We finished up about 11:45 pm local time which would have been 1:45 am to me with the time change difference.

I had left the table just as we were finishing up and went to the men's room. I left my phone on the table with the company I was with so I knew it would be safe. The only thing left to do that evening was to step out to the Strip in front of the Bellagio to watch the music choregraphed water fountain show for a few minutes before heading to the hotel a few blocks down the street. As I left the men's room, my company was standing outside the entrance of the dining room. We gathered up to say goodnight and we walked out the door as the restaurant was closing as we were leaving. We walked out of the hotel and toward the Strip for less than 5 minutes maximum and I realized  that I did not have my phone in my pocket, so I excused myself and hustled back to the restaurant was closed and the door was locked. There was no answer as I knocked on the door for many minutes. There was a foyer between the front door and the entrance to the restaurant so those workers could not hear me knocking.

One of the folks that I was with used their Find My Phone feature on their iPhone and we found it in the area of the hotel. We walked around for over an hour as it seemed to be moving around. We called the phone over and over hoping someone would hear it ringing and answer it, but no such luck. Finally being exhausted I gave up for the night. The next day when we looked again the phone was in the town of North Las Vegas. I went back to the restaurant early and finally found someone to talk to and I told them the whole ugly story. That is when I was told the linen service (table cloths, napkins, etc.) they use is in North Las Vegas and gave me the address and phone number. During the uber ride to the linen service we continued to call the phone again hoping someone would hear it ring and answer, again no such luck. 

When we finally arrived I told the clerk in the front office the story, they called for the plant manager to help. He was very accommodating and once he found out which restaurant I was at last night he knew exactly where to go in the facility. 

As it turns out, the tote that the linens from the restaurant I was at was still in the truck loaded and backed up to the dock from the early morning delivery. All of the totes looked the same with no markings as to what restaurant they came from (as they served restaurant linen service to those all through out the area) but the plant manager knew the tote I would be looking for would be one of the first ones picked up on the route. So we moved almost all of the totes out of the truck leaving only about 15-20 in the truck. We were continually calling the phone hoping we would hear it ring and identify the right tote but with all of the linens surrounding it, that was not happening. However, as we continued to call the phone, we heard a buzzing noise coming from one of the totes. It was my phone vibrating against the plastic tote. I had turned the ringer off during the meal as a courtesy to those I was with but had the vibrate feature turned on. 

We dumped the contents of that tote out and went through them all and found the phone. When I finally got it in my hand and opened it, the phone was still dry and clean and the battery was almost completely discharged with only 3% battery remaining.

Hopefully I will learn from these two incidents and never do that again! :-(

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