kindness via mobile phone

okay, so my story involves a man...a seventy year-old man! i know you may be thinking "geez CET, you sure are bucking your current trend of younger men, eek!" but it's not like that at all. so...

...i was on the bus on tuesday heading down to chelsea to meet business woman for a wander. i fell asleep during the journey, knackered as i was; when i came to i looked at the seat beside me and saw a mobile phone - it must've fell out of someone's pocket as they sat next to me. i got off the bus as i saw a gentleman get off too who i thought was the one sat next to me. i ran after him and asked if it was his phone but he said no! hmmm, so what now?

i met up with business woman and we examined the phone; it had some phone numbers (probably important to the owner) taped to the back of the phone. it was also in a clear case with a slip of paper tucked inside; i opened it up and written in pencil were instructions on how to turn the phone on and off. clue: owner of phone is not a tech-savvy person.

i concluded from the various clues that this phone must belong to a man, and an older man at that; it looked like a mobile phone that an elderly person would have - like my grandma's phone! sure enough i was right, after calling one of the numbers and having the woman tell me that it was indeed an elderly man's phone. he called me later and we arranged to meet the next day.

i know there is definitely a level of suspicion when it comes to meeting a stranger who "says" it's their phone, so of course we met at king's cross train station in the middle of the afternoon. it was so funny because i was trying to describe to him the night before what i look like so that he could recognise me; he was very hard of hearing and so on a crowded bus while talking to him i'm screaming "i'm chinese! i'll be wearing glasses and a long coat! i'm CHINESE!!!"

i immediately spotted him and knew he was the one because he said he was a seventy year-old black man and he was the only one sitting there at the designated place. he looked so sweet and kind, and while he was a stranger i think your intuition tells you a lot; i came up to him and gave him a big hug. he was so so grateful and kept saying "god bless you; i had given up hope!" i gave him back his phone and we chatted a bit while walking out of the station; turns out he used to work as a promoter of jazz musicians. he didn't have time to tell me about all the places he's been to and the people he's met, but he did invite me to a jazz club this sunday afternoon! i thought it must be serendipity because business woman loves jazz and we had wanted to check a jazz club out.

for those worried about my safety it's okay - the club he told us about is on a major street and c'mon, he's my height and he's seventy, i can take him out if necessary. :o)

so there you go, talk about a funny way of meeting people! i am quite excited about this jazz club and getting to know him better - i'm sure he's got lots of cool stories to share. i mean, can you imagine if he's met and worked with the likes of miles davis and john coltrane??? wow...

CET :o)