When Find My iPad Does Not Work

Did not realize Find My iPad won’t find my iPad in Minneapolis.

It is a sad day of mourning when Find My iPad does not work. Remember that saying that everybody used to say back in the 1970s about if you love something you will let it go, and when it doesn’t come back, you will hunt it down and kill it? OK, that was a variation of something else that was popular, but you get the gist. I feel like killing my iPad at the moment because Find My iPad will not work for me.

Who woulda thunk you could lose an iPad in First Class on Delta? When I landed in Minneapolis last week to visit my dying brother, I had a bunch of things on my mind. First on my list was how to get my luggage out of the overhead bin because I’m not quite tall enough. Fortunately, my seat mate yanked it down, and we shared parting words as we waited for the doors of the plane to open. I recall tucking my iPad into its sleeve, putting the sleeve into the back of seat A2 for safekeeping while I turned on my cellphone to check for messages.

One too many things rolling through my brain, like where to find the Alamo vehicles in the parking lot because I was allowed to sail past the check-in desk, how to find my sister’s house in south Minneapolis and, of course, ultimately visiting my brother, while dealing with my work-related escrows in progress, caused a wire in my brain to explode, and I simply forgot to remove my iPad from the back of the seat. All of my hands were full with luggage, cellphone and bag. Check.

Wasn’t until I checked in to the Grand Hotel that I realized my iPad was not with me. Find My iPad will only work if your iPad is turned on. I turned off my iPad and left it in airplane mode. Putting a message on my iPad won’t work because a stranger might not know to turn off airplane mode. Not only that, but like my husband says, I have misplaced trust in the people who are likely to find my iPad. The workers who clean Delta planes may not even realize an iPad is worthless if one does not have the code.

He says they can get fifty bucks for it on CraigsList. That I should wait until I am fairly confident I will never find my iPad again, then erase it and lock it. When would that be? I think that would be after 3 days. He says maybe a week. I filed a report with Delta, we checked with Minneapolis airport police, and there is nothing left to do.

At least I backed it up to iTunes just before I left Sacramento. Because that’s the kind of Sacramento Realtor I am. A Realtor with Plan B. A silver lining kind of Realtor. The new models are so much faster and thinner. At least that’s what I will keep telling myself.