What do I have in common with transexual Emma?

Although I might not necessarily think it, I’ve got one direct area of commonality with Emma, a transexual from downtown San Francisco. This is according to Tyler, the taxi driver who took me back to my hotel this evening. I haven’t yet considered the possibility of swapping genders although, never say never, right?

I was talking to Tyler about the best way of getting my phone back. I’ve done it again you see. Last week I left my Nokia E90 in the back of a limo. This week — this evening, no less, I left my phone in the back of a yellow cab. Just like Emma did. Luckily, Emma’s driver that evening was Tyler — who promptly returned the handset. I haven’t been quite so lucky as yet.

I don’t know WHAT is wrong with me.

I got out the cab this evening and walked to the restaurant. I was meeting Martin Smith of Frith PR and his delightful wife for some wicked vegetarian chinese food, and, perhaps my mind was elsewhere.

After about 20 seconds I did the geek dance. You know, where you start tapping every sodding pocket looking for your phone(s).

I am routinely carrying this Samsung BlackJack that I’m liking more and more — and my boring Blackberry Curve on o2.

I completed the dance a few times and was momentarily disturbed by a… disturbed chap. The ‘tenderloin’ is the name for the rather dodgy area of the city — my location at this point — and the chap who, I think, could have used a bit of help in the context of British Social Health Policy (mega dodgy, singing to himself, eyes wild, dribbling profusely) — well, the guy started copying me. So, for a brief moment, there were two folk doing a geek dance, slapping pockets and whatever, on the corner of O’Farrell and Jones.

I then noticed the Blackberry was missing. And I took that opportunity to get back into reality and walked quickly away from the guy who was by this time doing a good monkey dance.

I had the taxi driver’s cab number on the receipt.

I got to the relative calm of the restaurant. No monkey dancers there. I phoned taxi control.

They put a message to the driver to call me. I was on tenderhooks the whole evening.

I’ve just phoned again and control has not managed to get through to the taxi driver. Common, reckons new taxi driver Tyler, as he drove me back to my hotel.

“The signal to this thing goes on and off regularly,” he says, tapping his taxi despatch machine thing, “Often, the driver will only find your phone at the end of his shift.”

It’s also policy — for ‘liability’ reasons, the lady told me — to switch off any devices that are found and take them to the taxi’s lost and found immediately. In case some hot shot American lawyer gets on your case.

So I might not have lost my phone. It might be shivering somewhere in lost and found, calling for me.

It’d be rude to deactivate it wouldn’t it? You can’t do anything with it. It’s locked to o2 and the sim is blackberry-data-only. I’ll phone o2 in the morning and get a bar put on it.

No insurance with o2 though. Arse. That’ll learn me.