Connecticut woman attends a cloth swap at a friend’s house and finds her phone missing. Then she figures a 7yo girl was the culprit: ‘What even’
Clothing swaps are supposed to be about finding new treasures. But what if you lose the one most important treasure (your phone) while trying to update your wardrobe? Sadly, that’s exactly what happened to TikTok creator Kate (@moretolovski).
Kate recently recounted the infuriating experience of losing her phone in a video with over 11,000 views. Thankfully, she found her phone after an hour of frantic searching and calling. But to her shock, it was stashed in a place no adult would ever think to look. And just like that, a fun social event eventually left her with an awkward social question.
The phone vanished after some of the guests departed
Kate explains that she was attending a clothing swap with about five or six other women at a friend’s house. There was also a seven-year-old girl and her mother, both of whom Kate had never met before. But she did not think much of it because the girl was “not a nuisance.”
However, after the mother-daughter duo left, Kate realized her phone was gone. Despite having the other women call it repeatedly, she heard nothing. She also noted that she had remained in the same room the entire time. So, accidentally misplacing it somewhere in the house was out of question.
Find My led Kate to a silverware drawer in the kitchen
Using a friend’s device, Kate logged into iCloud to trigger the “Find My iPhone” sound. She eventually heard a “faint dinging” coming from the kitchen, where she hadn’t even entered.
After searching the counters, she opened the silverware drawer and found her phone buried underneath all the silverware. “My phone was in a drawer, in a separate room, underneath the silverware,” she noted, reeling from the “odd behavior.”
The creator suspects that the seven-year-old girl hid her phone
Kate is convinced that the child was responsible, arguing that “an adult would not do that.” While she chose not to confront the parent or her friend, she remains baffled by the “shady” move.
“You’re seven years old, but that’s like some shady shiz,” she remarked. She questioned the thought process behind hiding a stranger’s phone in a place where it could have easily gone unnoticed for days.
Why do children ‘stash’ objects?
It is surprisingly common for children between the ages of 5 and 8 to “hide” objects during social gatherings. While it can appear malicious to adults, this behavior stems from a desire for control or curiosity about cause and effect.
A child might hide a phone simply to see how people react to it being missing. Or, it could be because they were fascinated by the device and wanted to “keep” it in a safe spot. However, as users on TikTok noted, this is a shocking discovery for any parent.
How to protect your phone at social gatherings?
To avoid a “Find My iPhone” mission in a stranger’s silverware drawer, you need to keep your phone safe and visible to you. Choose a single, high-visibility spot (like a mantle or an end table) to keep your phone throughout the event.
If children you don’t know are present, the safest place for your phone is tucked away in a zipped bag. But if they get creative and still manage to get hold of it, you should have a backup plan. So, make sure your “Find My” alerts bypass silent mode and are set to the highest volume.
If it really was a child playing hide-and-seek with your phone, check the unlikely places like drawers, cabinets, and even the fridge. You need to think like a child to decode a child’s game.
TikTok users had a mixed reaction
While many users understood Kate’s panic, several brushed it off with the classic “kids will be kids” excuse. “Uhhmmmmm….thats what kids do. Even if you’re the best of parents,” one viewer remarked, normalizing the behavior.
Fellow parents also weighed on what would they do. One wrote, “I would want to know if my kid did that. Unfortunately, many parents would just get offended,” highlighting the social difficulty of confrontation.
One user also shared an alternate theory. Instead of calling it a child’s prank, they explored the idea of an adult being involved. “It would be strange for an adult to do unless an adult was trying to steal your phone and panic stashed it,” they wrote .
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
