Catastrophe #1
Adam went out of town for the first time in 3 years, leaving on Thursday night. Well, about an hour after he left, my dishwasher caught on fire. I was getting ready for choir when I smelled that distinctive “burnt plastic” smell. The electrical in this house is kind of hinky and our pup enjoys chewing cords, so I assumed it was something plugged in. I wandered around the house unplugging things when I went into the kitchen and saw smoke pouring out of the dishwasher. The spin arm at the bottom had apparently come loose and was laying directly on the heating elements. Ok, fine. I can do dishes by hand for a while while we order a replacement part. But oh no, that wasn’t the end of my weekend catastrophes.
Catastrophe #2
Anyone who’s ever met me knows why I love Parks and Rec. I am Leslie Knope, and in true Leslie Knope fashion, I was going to host a Galentine’s Day Brunch with all my gal pals. I put together my menu (waffles of course) and headed to go shopping Friday night. I wanted to make little favors for my friends to take home to remember they are loved, and opted for little planters. I went to the Dollar Tree to pick up some cheap succulent pots, and then continued my errands. When I got to the second stop, I realized I didn’t have my wallet. I ran back to Dollar Tree and scanned the parking lot and asked the cashier if anyone had turned it in. No dice.
At this point I remembered I had a Tile, so I tried to ping it. I may or may not have “lost” my wallet in my car before…which led to Adam getting me the tile set. Alas, no dice. At this point I noticed this handy “Alert When Found” setting so I went ahead and did that and went on my merry way frantically trying to find someone to pick up a few groceries so Galentine’s Day wouldn’t be without waffles. I cancelled all my cards, posted on our local groups, and just accepted it was gone forever.
Terrible Code
Hold on! I need a driver’s license. I drove home (nervously, because no ID, no money, nuthin’) and went to the Iowa Dot page to make an appointment, and that’s when I discovered this little nugget that infuriates the software engineer in me.
Apparently, you can only have ONE appointment, ever. Not one per month. Ever. Ok, I guess I’ll just show up and beg my case?
I moved on and started prepping for the Galentine’s Day Brunch. We had a truly lovely time with great friends, and I am glad to say there were no catastrophes on Saturday, or even on Sunday (though I missed church because I don’t want to drive without a license).
But wait, there’s more!
Buckle up and hold on because this is where the story really gets wild. Remember that “alert me when found” setting in the Tile app? Apparently, everyone who has the Tile app installed on their phone is a network, and THEIR phones will scan and look for my missing tile.
Tile found it! I got an alert Monday afternoon that my tile had been found. It even gave me the option send a thanks so naturally I did. When this happened, tile sent me an updated location of my tile. Now, at this point I’m low-key freaking out and I have no idea what to do. Is it a house? Do I go there and ask nicely for my wallet back? Do I call the police? As any good google sleuth does, my first step was to look at a street view and that’s when my heart sank. It’s a gas station. That probably means that whoever has it is long gone. Oh well, I call the non-emergency line anyways and decide to head down there just to see if it was thrown in the weeds or something.
The Rescue
I show up and Adam was already there. I pull my phone out and try to ping the tile, but get no response. That’s when Adam tells me that this is the city’s recycling pick up. There were 3 huge metal dumpsters full of recycling. We started opening doors and trying to ping from inside the dumpsters and thats when my app tells me it has a strong signal strength with my wallet!!!!
I “rang” it and Adam, my knight in shining armour, climbed in to retrieve it. Luckily, it was a cardboard dumpster, so the garbage was only kind of gross instead of absolutely disgusting. We found it stuffed inside a Taco Bell bag, stuffed instead a Dollar Tree (lol) bag, stuffed in the dumpster. I can’t believe that I found it. That means someone who had the Tile app installed came by this afternoon, opened the door, their phone found my tile and notified me. The tile wasn’t discoverable from the parking lot, they had to have opened the dumpster. To top it off, the bag was on top, so luckily we didn’t have to dig too much.
Long story short. Halle-freaking-lujah I don’t have to go to the DMV and beg them to see me without an appointment. I’m out a few bucks in cash, and unfortunately my late grandmothers necklace I kept in there after the chain broke. They left the cards, including gift cards, but I had already cancelled all my cards. I do get a sick sense of satisfaction that in order to steal my grandmothers necklace, they had to touch the nasty used fake eyelashes that have been in that pocket since I did Rock of Ages and aren’t in there now. I threw out the wallet (after removing my precious drivers license) and I’m headed to the store with a gift card to get a new one.
My Honest Review
If you don’t have a tile. Buy one. Buy it now. I don’t even have a premium subscription and I still recovered my things. There’s zero chance I would have found this on my own.
