essays

We Drown Cell Phones

You know how sometimes you just can’t face the reality of a bad situation because you caused it, and you can’t blame anyone else.

My wife is going through this. She washed a pair of her pants with the cell phone in the pocket. Yeah, I gotta admit, when she told me, I had a short-lived glimmer of hope that it might still work. And, yes, I called the phone.

But then I thought - this wasn’t dropped in water just for a second. This baby was in the washer getting swished around, and rinsed and rinsed again, then spun dry. I made sure she didn’t plug the phone in to see if charging it would help. That was last night. This morning she told me she “guessed” the phone was really dead because a button on the side was missing.

Yup, that little button missing was the final straw to convince her that a gadget chocked full of electronic stuff can’t survive a full wash cycle. There is a waterproof cell phone that can spend up to 30 minutes underwater. According to Gizmodo, “This means you can’t go swimming with it, but if it accidentally slips into some water, you’re still safe. As long you haven’t just relieved yourself in that water, in that case, please wash your phone before using.”

Update on Wife’s Phone: She thinks there is hope because some friends told her that theirs worked OK after a couple days of drying! She also said, she noticed that the display was working because it said she had two voice mails. But what do I know? I’m Cell-u-lite.

Update on Wife’s Phone 2: To quote my wife: “un-be-leiv-ab-bull.” She took the phone to a friend who had the same phone to use her SIM card and battery, and lo and behold. It worked!
So she put her SIM card back in with her friends battery and it worked. So a trip to the battery place and she is back in business.
Ain’t technology wunnerful?

Final Update on Wife’s Phone 3: The $30 battery she bought wouldn’t hold the charge, so the phone is kaput. She bought a new phone.

Final Update on Wife’s Phone 3.1: Her SIM card worked just fine.

Final Update on Wife’s Phone 4: If you drop your phone in water, Lifehacker has some ideas on how to save it.

Mark Van Patten writes a blog called Going Like Sixty and has been married to the same woman since 1968.

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