Back in March, I posted about the difficulties I was having in finding a new cell phone. My T-Mobile contract expired in December and I’ve passively looking for a new phone and provider since then.

Well, it looks like Universal Studios gave my cell phone hunt a boost from passive to active when I headed to Islands of Adventure on Monday. After riding the Incredible Hulk coaster and The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, I wanted to hit Dueling Dragons once before leaving the park. After winding through the queue, I selected the “Ice” side of the coaster to ride. It was a great ride and a fun time until I began checking my pockets while walking away from the ride.

Inside the left pocket of my shorts were my car keys. Within my back pocket was my wallet. And in my right pocket were my business card holder, Canon point-and-shoot camera, and… that’s all. I always keep my cell phone in my right pocket, so that’s when I realized that Dueling Dragons had eaten my phone.

I’ve never lost anything on a roller coaster before and have ridden this particular coaster plenty of times before without anything leaving my pockets, so I’m not sure what caused my phone escape this time.

Unfortunately, despite several assurances by the staff at the Islands of Adventure Lost & Found that their night crew regularly sweeps the ground below the coaster for lost items, my phone has not been found. Calling it also results in it immediately going to voice mail, which means it is off. Perhaps only the battery fell out, but most likely the phone exploded from smashing into the ground at high speeds coming off of the coaster.

So now I’m without a cell phone and but because of this incident, I am actively on the hunt for a new one, thanks to Dueling Dragons. From now on, I will be cautiously guarding the contents of my pockets when going on roller coasters, and you should too. I know that seems like common sense, but based on the number of details I had to give Lost & Found about the phone, it sounded like they find plenty of them every day, so losing them must be rather common.

I’ll follow this post up soon, likely tomorrow, with some  details on what phone and provider I decide on in my ongoing search for a cell phone that is primarily a phone, not a portable computer.