Graveyard of the lost

Sep 24 2011, Written by Nguyen Tran in News, 0 Comments

When the class of 2015 came to Duke, parents, administrators and upperclassmen alike tried to beat into them the lesson that “thou should never lose thyself.”

There is a more practical lesson that the concerned adults seemed to overlook: do not lose your iPhone.

Or Android. Or iPad. Or key. Or wallet.

Based on an unofficial count of the official class of 2015 facebook group, this year’s freshmen have lost 17 phones, 23 wallets, 45 Duke cards/driver’s licenses/state IDs. And this does not even include the occasional odd missing items such as a backpack or a single flip flop.

More often than not, people lose their belongings during the weekends.

As for the reason, we can only guess, as not many people are willing to share their stories. But, it’s not incredibly hard to find out why you should lose your phone at a certain place on Morgan Street.

There are quite a number of people who lost personal items when they were sober too, however.

For freshman Stefan Gorham, he lost his phone during an On Time Taxi trip to a party off campus.

“I tried calling the company to have them meet me, but they didn’t show up where I told them to,” Gorham said. “And I tried consistently for three days afterward but they kept saying they hadn’t found it.”

“I’m not 100 percent positive,” he added. “Some of the finer points of the night are a little fuzzy.”

For freshman Rebecca Holmes, soberly losing her keys was the worst thing that has ever happened to her.

“I don’t even drink,” she exclaimed. “So this shouldn’t be happening to me.”

Rebecca lost her key during a late night run to Cosmic Cantina, and as her roommate was out the next morning, she could not get back to the room.

“I had to wash my hair in the kitchen sink!” Rebecca said.

Freshman Danielle Colson recalled how she lost her ID “completely sober” on the quad after the football game last week, and got it back unexpectedly.

“A lady from Smith Warehouse found it while they were cleaning up from the football game,” Colson said. “She called me, and we met at Smith.”

But for some people, it’s not that easy to get back what they have lost.

“I lost my dignity last weekend,” said freshman Cameron Tripp. “Anyone can give it back to me?”

And judging from the reaction, his is not the only one that needs to be found.