Friends
Judy Conlin
Life is full of heartaches. You may lose almost your entire family. You may lose most of your longtime friends. You may lose beloved pets. As one ages, there are more losses. This is the normal way life goes, although in my particular case, there may have been more losses than usual and some of them way earlier than usual. Sometimes I think about all this, and I start feeling sorry for myself.
It took an incident last week to show me how really blessed I am. Let me explain. We were on the stage at the theater getting ready to start blocking our scenes for our next show, which will be Oct. 23-25 at 2 p.m. at Tallahassee Theatre. I showed a message on my phone to one of the other actors just as we were about to begin. Quickly, I dropped the phone to the floor or into my purse. I never left the stage again except to go to my car.
I had to pick up a pair of glasses, and before I went into the store, I noticed that my phone was not in its designated spot. I immediately guessed I’d left it on the stage. I picked up my glasses and went right back to the studio. It was not on that stage.
I knew where most of the cast was eating lunch. I couldn’t call them — no phone — so I drove there. I told my sad story and asked my friend who I showed my phone to if she had accidentally picked it up and put it in her bag. She immediately left the restaurant and went to search for it in her bag but came back with a negative response.
That wasn’t the end of the matter. The whole group sprang into action. They were going to find that phone. First, they called our director to see if she had found it. She hadn’t, but she referred us to the lady who was manning the box office to check and call us back.
In the meantime, they asked if I had gone through my bags and my car. I said I had but was going to check again. The only guy in the group there insisted he was going to go with me. He is a perfect Southern gentleman and helped me by opening doors, traversing curbs, etc. We searched through all my things again. He found a pair of shears that I had been hunting for, but we found no phone.
The lady from the theater called back. The phone was not there. She had checked the stage, the restroom and the dressing room, and the phone was not there.
They had all been dialing my phone, but it always went to voicemail. I remembered I had turned the volume way down during church and Bible study and had not turned it back up. We were never going to hear it ringing.
Now they all decided that I must return to the theater with one of them and search again. The melee was on. Each argued why they should be the one to go back with me. Ann, the actress next oldest to me, was done eating and said she was going there now to search and would wait for whoever went with me to come.
The most adamant voice, Holly’s, won out, declaring I was riding with her and she would then bring me back to get my car. They all reiterated how it might be easier for them to go, but they all offered something, one even taking the guy home as he was previously riding home with my new chauffeur. I was completely baffled as to why I needed to be driven, as I had made it there on my own, but was swept along by this new group effort.
On arrival, Ann had scoured the theater, the porch, the steps and the parking lot and discovered nothing. Undeterred, we three lifted carpet edges and shined flashlights down crevices, but all to no avail. They then called one of our members who had not gone to lunch. She suggested calling Verizon to see if they could trace the phone. No luck there, but they did say I had some insurance to help buy a new phone.
I kept apologizing for ruining their day, but they said they had had a grand time chatting and bonding all afternoon. I said it was time to give up and go home, as the day was over. My driver was willing to leave, but she was not giving up.
“We will go back and check your car one more time,” she declared.
Back we went. While she was parking her car, I began dumping everything out once again. This time, a shiny corner of something peeked out between a stapled and clipped script. It was my phone. I can’t imagine how it could have fallen into such a tight hiding place, but there it was.
I tell all this to my cynical alter ego, Nurse Judy.
“Shame on you,” she says. “You felt sorry for yourself when people did all this for such a pathetic, pitiful, frumpy old woman.”
I hate to say it, but she is right. Old friends may be gold, but new friends can be more precious than gold. Thank you all.
More later,
Grateful Judy
