The only downside to spending five days surrounding Rosh Hashanah in Seattle with my fiancé Shira occurred upon arrival at LAX.

Leaping from a friend’s car as we drew up to a skycap, I retrieved my luggage, bid him farewell and proceeded to check in.

Horrors.

Approaching the TSA counter, I reached for the pocket where my cell phone safely has been stored for years.

This cannot be.

Surely it was in a different pocket.

Surely it was not.

I felt as if someone had stolen my shoes off my feet. Burgled. Invaded.

Especially since the flight was not a nonstop. How could I let Shira know I might be hours late? Or early?

I soon realized what had happened. My phone had been in my lap as my friend and I had discussed a boarding pass. I became distracted, and it slipperied off my lap as I stood to leave the car.

Striding toward the departure gate, I approached a seated, normal-appearing gentleman. Simultaneously wary and hoping to convey innocence, I asked if he would dial a number for me.

Ninety minutes before takeoff.

My friend resides in Santa Monica.

Know what I am thinking?

Seeking not only sympathy but a return trip to the airport with my phone, I bridged the brief distance from setback to upset when my friend made it plain he was in no such mood.

“Too bad – that is the way it goes,” he said.

I turned away grimly.

After boarding our flight, I grimaced with envy when the attendant announced that electronic devices should be turned to airplane mode.

No such setting existed in the anti-electronic newspaper I was emptily crumpling. News stories hardly distracted me.

Arriving in Seattle almost on time, beautiful Shira, exactly on time, greeted me with an illuminating smile and irresistible words.

Magically she had made me forget my phone was hundreds of miles away and that I had not eaten since the day before.

Rosh Hashanah would begin in three hours.

Since the two-day New Year holiday would flow directly into Shabbos, driving and phoning would be off-limits anyway from Wednesday evening until 7:49 Saturday evening.

What? Me worry?

(To be continued)