I lost all my friends and became redundancy-proof

I made a boozy mistake in the back of an Uber. I highly recommend it. Picture: istock

Probably the most satisfying thing I learned at university was how to knot a bow tie without using a mirror (no, I wasn’t the most diligent student). Not for me the clip-on or elasticated kiddie version, but a weirdly shaped piece of cloth that as the evening drew to a close I could untie, fancying it made me look like James Bond or a louche jazz singer (“Harry Connick Senior, maybe,” a cruel friend observed last month).

My dinner suit is very old, dating from the time when I had, in one of the great misnomers, a “very healthy” appetite. As my body shrinks towards the grave, the suit has become far too big for me but is still in excellent condition, as I don’t go to many fancy events these days. My wife says that’s because I’m no longer a nice person and people don’t want to hang out with me, but what would she bloody know?

Anyway, the suit has such big trouser pockets that a mobile phone slips easily into one and, yes, you’ve guessed correctly, equally easily – and unnoticeably – out again, more precisely into the back seat of an absurdly late-night Uber. Which is how what I’m calling my “involuntary mobile detox” began.

Cynical readers might surmise that there was drink involved, and they would be right; they might also assume that when the mistake was spotted (yes, right again, trying to pay for another Bundy and coke in the pre-dawn wasteland of Sydney’s inner-city Surry Hills), a quick call would turn the Uber driver around to return the phone to its grateful, reward-brandishing owner.

But no, wrong. Privacy issues (sorry, says Uber, the driver has your phone but you can’t have her number; you must wait to be called) and asynchronous working schedules (she works nights) mean the phone has disappeared from my life – apparently, at the time of writing, forever.

A colleague who once had a similar experience described it as like “losing a limb”, which as the Paralympics begin seems an analogy of Joycean (Barnaby, not James) insensitivity.

I’ve been lucky enough to survive so far with all my bits intact, save for an impressive scar on my shin that reminds me to stay away from motor bikes, but I know what he means. People have been born and raised their children in the years since I acquired my first primitive mobile, then a BlackBerry, then various iThings laden with magical, unused features; and until two weeks ago I had never mislaid one.

For the first few days it was a violent irritation each time I wanted to contact people. In the office I pleaded for help, but begging the phone out of a working journalist’s hands is nearly impossible – though I was at least able to teach the kindly few who succumbed to my entreaties a lesson about the perils of misplaced trust, by buying fine wine and a better-fitting suit for myself on their Apple Pay accounts.

Then on day four I realised I’d slept through the night without reaching for the phone to check my messages or look something up; 48 hours later I marvelled at how much work I’d ploughed through, making me, I hope, a redundancy-proof blessing to my employer; today I am a contented, liberated soul and don’t care if I never see the phone again.

This peace can’t last, I know. The Uber driver will get in touch, or someone important will insist I get a new phone, and I will be forced to surrender the delicious, rediscovered freedom to wander the earth untraceable and uncontactable, like we used to in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, to all those who have been infuriated by my failure to return calls and texts, my apologies. This time I really wasn’t ignoring you, honest.