How can you be two places at once when you're not any place at all?

For my Facebook friends who received notification earlier this evening that I was all over Manhattan, checking in from the Red Cat, Lasagna Chelsea Restaurant, Stout NYC, Chelsea Piers, the McKittrick Hotel, The Frying Pan, Uncle Jack's Steakhouse, Madison Square Garden and the Gotham Comedy Club, there’s a simple explanation. Sort of. 

I wasn’t any of those places.

Truth be told, I was on an Amtrak train returning from D.C. I left Connecticut at 6 am this morning, driving a U-Haul truck full of furniture we’re giving our oldest son and his wife, and our youngest son, all of whom live there – furniture we won’t be using in our new life in Florida.

I arrived at son Stuart’s apartment at 12:15, we offloaded all his furniture, then he and I drove to a storage facility across town to offload stuff for son Ben and Heidi. I returned the truck at 3:45 and caught a 4:25 train back to Stamford, Connecticut via Baltimore, Wilmington, Philly, Trenton, Newark and New York’s Penn Station, where the stop lasts for 10 minutes.

Bored while parked at Penn Station, I got out my iPhone, checked Facebook, and thought it might be cool to use the check-in function, showing I was in New York on this beautiful Saturday night. Which I was, technically, even though I was stuck in a train tunnel 100 or so feet below ground. I had forgotten that Penn Station is located directly below dozens of New York venues which give "check in" functionality to my iPhone, and Facebook said I could check in from any of them. So I did -- one after the other. Then my phone ran out of battery, and I went back to the book I had been reading for the rest of the ride up to Connecticut and forgot about it.

When Judy met me at the Stamford station an hour later she was semi-hysterical. “Someone’s stolen your phone and they’re checking in from all over New York! You’ve gotta call Verizon! You’ve lost your contacts!. They have access to our financial information! It’s awful! I was afraid you’d been mugged! I tried to call but ... no answer! Oh my God, are you OK?"

I assured her I hadn’t and I am. I was simply a 61 year-old bored boy playing with his toy.

Wish I had been all those fun places, but I wasn’t. I regret the incident.

And now I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. 

We long-distance truckers work up quite a sweat you know. 

Good night.