Now I've Lost It

Well, I guess it had to happen. It was only my second airplane trip with my new Beloved, so I probably should have expected there would be issues. But even I hadn't anticipated how bereft I'd feel when it was over, when I finally landed in LAX, commandeered my rental car and checked into a hotel—there to discover I'd left something very important behind: my brand-new Kindle. Suffice to say, mildly hysterical mayhem ensued—frantic digging through oversized handbag, lots of cursing and, finally, a desperate call to the airport's Lost and Found. (I got a recording telling me to describe the lost item; I'd get a call back only if they found it.) Describing the device was not that easy—“bigger than a Blackberry, smaller than a laptop”—and there were no identifying marks. In the few short weeks I'd owned the thing, it had become so much a part of me—a gee-whiz item at lunches, a talking point at the office, finally something my teenage son could respect me for—that I hadn't even thought to somehow mark it as mine.

The only good news, I told myself, was that by midflight it had been almost completely out of juice (note to self if I ever get a new one: pretend it's a cell phone and recharge every night), making it less likely someone might find it and go wild at the Kindle store on my registered account. (Books may be only about $10, but they add up fast because the Kindle can hold dozens.) But I dutifully contacted Amazon, whose sympathetic representative promptly de-registered it and told me that if by some miracle the thing turned up, I could re-register it at no charge. (I half-jokingly asked him if Amazon had a Kindle-replacement policy and he sweetly got off the line to check: they don't) But if I ever did buy a new one, he told me, I could download—for free—anything I'd had on the original. (It seems you can pay once and download up to six times to any Kindle registered to you.) This took some of the sting out of the loss, since I had downloaded about $200 worth of books and newspapers: my total financial loss was stuck at (a still rather hefty) $400, the Kindle's purchase price. Still, I couldn't help noting that if I'd left even a brand-new hardcover in the seat pocket in front of me, I would have felt only $25 worth of guilt—not to mention that I could have replaced it within minutes.

Of course, I had some real, live books with me, too, so I was not reading-challenged all weekend. Still, I missed my Kindle, its ease, its readability without glasses, its ability to provide me with books I never got around to buying in print—think Snow Flower and the Secret Fan—but was loving in the downloadable format. At first I thought I might get it back—will anybody even know what this is? I wondered about whatever plane-cleaner might find it—but it's been a week now, and LAX hasn't called.

Which ought to make Amazon's Jeff Bezos happy: apparently, whoever found my Kindle did know what it was and was thrilled to have it. As for me, I'm trying to look on the bright side by conjuring the warm and fuzzy feeling you sometimes get when you pass along a favorite book to a friend. Call me crazy, but I'm convinced my Kindle has found itself a good, bookish home.

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