Diaper Diva lost her iPhone and we weren’t sure if it happened during lunch at Lunch, the great lobster roll eatery on Montauk Highway or if it was lost it at the public pool at Montauk Downs, a state park in Montauk.

First we checked everywhere in the car. We emptied out the beach bags, searched every nook and cranny of the car.

Then we went back in Lunch and searched the booth, the floor under the booth, the restroom; we checked the car again.

“$650.00,” she cried. “I don’t deserve to have an iPhone,” Diaper Diva lambasted herself as she threw everything out of the car onto the park lot asphalt creating a mound of beach accessories: towels, floaties, pails, shovels, bathing suits, a hot pink ice cooler.

Just an hour before Diaper Diva was telling Smartmom how empowered she felt to have an iPhone, how wonderful it is, what a world of possibility it created…

“I am going to kill myself if I lose this iPhone,” she said.

They packed up her car and in two cars headed back to Montauk Downs. Like a team of detectives, they retraced her every step. Starting at the pool. they walked the walk from the pool, to the path to the parking lot, into the parking lot, the parking space…

NOTHING.

Then Smartmom remembered that while leaving the pool area, she’d asked Diaper Diva to hold her William Gibson novel, Pattern Recognition.

“Where’s the book?” Smartmom asked outloud.

“What book?” Diaper Diva said.

“The book I handed you,” Smartmom said.

Turned out the book was missing, too. Smartmom was convinced there was some connection between the missing Gibson book and the iPhone.

They asked all the Lifeguards, the people at the Lost and Found desk, the woman at the entrance; over time every one at the pool knew that an iPhone was missing.

In the midst of this, Smartmom and Hepcat went back to Lunch search the restaurant.

“Did you guys really search the booth before we left?” Diaper Diva asked suspiciously.

Hepcat and Smartmom took a scenic ride down the Old Montauk Highway to Lunch. Again, they searched high and low but to no avail.

The iPhone was still missing. When they got back to Montauk Downs, Hepcat continued to retrace Diaper Diva’s steps in search of the iPhone and “Pattern Recognition” by William Gibson.

Finally, Diaper Diva seemed to be calming down. She was lying in the shallow children’s pool with Ducky and OSFO when she thought to call her message machine back in Brooklyn.

“Someone called,” she screamed out. She searched desperately for a pen to write down the person’s phone number.

Finally, DD reached her Good Samaritan on the phone. Within minutes she and Hepcat were enroute to the Good Samaritan’s house, which was just up the road from the pool.

Good Samaritan found the iPhone on the road. “It must have been thrown from the car at high speed,,” she said. “It’s really scratched up.”

And that’s indeed what happened. Diaper Diva put the iPhone (and maybe the unfound book) on top of the car when Ducky had to use her portable potty in the pool parking lot. When she was through, DD packed up the portable potty and forgot that she’d put the iPhone on the roof of the car.

Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. The iPhone went flying off the car not far from the pool. Our Good Samaritan saw it on the side of the road and took it home. She called Diaper Diva’s home number almost immediately.

After the iPhone was returned and a happy Diaper Diva and the rest were heading back to Sag Harbor, Smartmom got a call from Good Samaritan (she had Smartmom’s number because Diaper Diva used SM’s phone to call her).

“I was a little frazzled when your sister handed me the reward money. I didn’t know what it was. I feel very weird about keeping it. I didn’t return the phone because of a reward or an award. I returned it because it’s the right thing to do,” she told Smartmom, who was impressed with the Good Samaritan’s integrity and struggel with accepting Diaper Diva’s reward money.

“I feel like I should give the money back,” she said.

Things got busy. Dinner for the kids. Dinner for the grown ups. Diaper Diva will call GS in the morning. It’ll be interesting to hear what they have to say.

Diaper Diva is thrilled to have her phone back. Smartmom is happy that Diaper Diva is happy. Hepcat is glad he doesn’t have to retrace any more of DD’s steps. OSFO told DD to save up for another one. Ducky didn’t really know what was going on but she’s certainly glad that things have calmed down…

Just another day on the family vacation.

The incredible thing is the phone continues to work perfectly. It’s unbelievable. It fell off of the roof of a car that was probably going 30 mph and it works like new (except for a few minor scratches). If only she hadn’t taken off the “encase,” its nifty rubber case. Then it would still be perfect.

Unbelievable.