Tonight I arrived home and realized that I left my phone at work.

Damn.

The thoughts slowly bloomed like silly little flowers in my feeble brain. Here’s how they went,

I can’t text my girlfriend.

I can’t even call her to tell her I can’t respond to her texts, because I don’t have another phone to call with.

Even if I did, I don’t know her number.

Why don’t I know her number?

I don’t know anybody’s number any more except for my sister, who hasn’t changed hers in decades.

I should keep a backup of my phone numbers somewhere.

Maybe iTunes on my PC has my phone numbers.

Nope.

Do I have my girlfriend’s number in my GMail contacts?

Nope.

Well, this is stupid. But I can see it being more than stupid.  It would be catastrophic in an emergency.

Someone mentioned iCloud in an Internet forum related to lost/stolen phones.

I seem to remember turning on iCloud — something about auto syncing music to my phone.

I already have a cloud.  Google.  I don’t need an Apple cloud.

[The Rolling Stones’ Get Off of My Cloud plays in my head for a few seconds.]

Let’s try going to iCloud.com.

It’s asking for a username and password. My iTunes account?  Yep, that works.

There’s a contact list icon. Click it.

There are my phone numbers!

Well, I can’t call my girlfriend but it’s nice to know I have her number.

There’s a “Find my phone” button. Click it.

Wow! A map with a dot right at the address where my office is. My phone has practically phoned home!  It’s saying, “Here I am!”

That is impressive.

OK, so my phone is safe (as long as the cleaning crew doesn’t swipe it).

I can’t call or text anyone.

Yeah.  All good.  I think I can rest easy tonight.

So here’s a tip for all you iPhoners: if you haven’t turned on iCloud for your phone, you might want to consider it.  It’s not the only way to stash your important info, but it’s one of the easiest… and coolest!