Here’s what to do when you lose your iPhone. Follow my step-by-step guide to get it back or at least regain your sanity:
Call it immediately from another number. If it rings to voicemail, the Son of a Beast/Daughter of a Beast (SOBDOB) who stole it won’t answer because he/she knew to shut it off.
Log into iCloud and click, “Locate your phone,” which you discover isn’t plausible (and is actually a stupid step) because you already knew the SOBDOB shut it off when he/she pocketed it like an off- Broadway street boy/girl practicing his/her role from Les Misérables.
Click “Report your phone lost or stolen” and mutter “by a SOBDOB” under your breath loudly so an entire convention center of your industry colleagues can hear you.
Click “Erase your phone” so when the SOBDOB begins to feel high-and-mighty, turns it back on and tries to creep into your password-protected life, it immediately gets wiped clean.
Brush off your alter-ego (your alternative personality that would never be so dumb as to put the phone down in a public place), go to the Apple Store and purchase a bigger and better phone (from a young, handsome man that lessons you on iPhone (and anger) management and up-sells you a better phone by preying on your love of photography while also suggesting one that is water resistant because of your previous phone accident history, e.g., murky pond water CIRCA 2013, pedicure water CIRCA 2014, panga/bottom of the boat water CIRCA 2015, et al.) But, the real reason you upgrade is because you should be rewarded for the extra 11,377 physical steps you took on foot the day before trying to hunt down the SOBDOB.
Finally, and this is the most important step, get down on your hands and knees and pray that the SOBDOB who stole your phone gets all the karma he/she deserves.
Tonia Allen Gould 