A young woman, who has chosen to remain anonymous for security reasons, experienced tragedy on Sunday very early morning as she was returning home from casual drinks with her friends. She lost her cell phone.

Her voice quivers still as she recounts the horror of the moments between using her beloved device and realizing it was no longer on her person.

“I was making a phone call as I was being driven home by my taxi. I paid the fare, tipped way too much because I was feeling generous, and went upstairs to my apartment.” Her eyes, still red from the waves of almost nonstop tears, begin to tear up as she continues, “That’s when I checked my jacket pockets and it was gone.” Her emotions get the better of her and there is a long, pregnant pause.

Currently without a roommate and unable to make any phone calls of any kind, the woman was completely unsure what to do. She immediately emailed the police with her situation and told them to put out the Amber alert, traditionally used for missing children.

“I felt it was appropriate to use this tactic when searching for my Velma,” she says referring to her trusty companion. “I am excrutiatingly inconvenienced right now without her. And distraught. I need the community help me out as much as possible. Time is of the essence in cases like these.”

After notifying the proper authorities, the woman says she retraced her steps, walking back outside to the curb where the taxi first dropped her off. She claims to have stood there for long spurts of time, very likely leaving herself open to a gentlemen getting the wrong idea of her agenda at the corner. She says she was simply hoping the driver would swing back over and hand Velma back within the hour.

Instead, she pulled over another taxi and had a long chat with possible tactics before asking a random man in a car driving by for the use of his phone. Hoping the man was not an axe murderer, she dialed the phone several times. The somewhat tipsy good sumaritan consistently offered the woman a seat in the car, which she happily refused as she stood outside eyeing her door while constantly calling. Velma was likely staying rather quiet in the back seat, however, since she had been placed on “vibrate-only” mode. The kind, drunk man asked the woman if she needed a ride home, still unable to grasp-despite her consistent answers-that she was already home. She thanked him once again and ran upstairs to her apartment…once he was out of sight.

She admits that Velma had been getting older lately and had been acting up quite a bit, but she insists that her phone had remained steadfast and loyal until its disappearance.

The woman insists that the inconvenience and headache caused by a lost cell phone can only be compared to the dramatic feeling of something like having your leg removed during the civil war in order to save the rest of your body from infection. Sure, you may get a wooden replacement and will be able to hobble the rest of your life, but you’ll always miss your original part. And the world will never look the same.