Naked.

My phone is gone. Lost. Stolen.

For now, I blame my exhaustion. I blame my scatter-brained tendencies.
I blame the mentality of IPS students.

I left the phone on my desk, by my computer, sort-of camouflaged amidst all the black- the black cords, the black laptop computer, and the black metal paper tray- but still in sight. It was there at the beginning of 8th period; it was gone by the end of 9th.

Of course, I left it out by mistake. Normally, I am very careful about putting it back in my pocket. I was likely so tired from the previous late night (I didn't get to bed until about 1:30 a.m.) that when students started banging on my door after lunch, I simply forgot it was still on the desk and not in my pocket where it should have been.

That doesn't excuse what happened.

Mrs. Atkins made some suggestions about what to do when I talked to her about the situation after school.
AT&T made some suggestions about what to do when I called them after school.
I'm still really hoping it was intended as just a prank, that whoever took it will either give it back to me on Monday or find a way to sneak it back to my desk on the sly (so I can't actually incriminate them for the deed).

It's still gone, though, and I am currently without a phone. Naked. Exposed. Vulnerable. Powerless. Isolated. that is how I feel, knowing the reason I am without it is because someone took it.

By now, I know that. Because someone used it to make a 40-minute phone call to a landline number at 6:00 p.m., long after it had gone missing from my desk. Still, it hasn't been excessively used. Which gives rise to my hope that maybe it really was just a prank and not a malicious act of theft.

I don't know--and won't know much more until tomorrow. I have temporarily suspended the phone line so any attempts to run up charges should fail. So now, all I can do is wait. And hope. And pray.