sufficient

cell phone 5.0

I have a problem with cell phones. I always have. When I was 14, in 1992, my mother had to get a cell phone to keep up with me. Not that I was bad, I just did stupid things where I needed to be able to reach her wherever she was to come rescue me. She relinquished her cell phone and has not owned one basically since I moved out of the house.

Now I have to be the responsible one and keep up with the phone myself. This is problematic for me. I've lived in Atlanta for a little over 6 years now and yesterday I had to get cell phone #5. The first one I kept for almost a year and a half, but it short circuited one day when I was carrying it in the back pocket of my jeans down to a neighbor's house in a light rain. Who knew that so little moisture could ruin a phone?

The second one lasted a little over a year- a flip phone and I managed to break off the part where it flips, exposing all the wires. I kept it together with superglue for 3-4 months. The next one lasted a year and a half as well, but was severely damaged after the first 4 months. I had a vase of flowers in the passenger seat that spilled as I took a turn. I leaned over to pick the vase up and unknowingly knocked over the coke in the cup holder. It spilled into my purse, which I did not realize till my phone had been sitting in a pool of water for 3 hours. I dried it out with a hair dryer and other than some volume issues, it continued to work for over a year. I did knock the antenna out at some point and then one day I dropped it and it would never close all the way again.

So when I went to get phone #4, I picked the one that looked the sturdiest and it served me well. I got insurance that time and was really careful with my phone. In the 14 months that I had it, I only dropped it twice. And then, yesterday happened. At cross country practice, my phone, a heavy set of keys and a few pens were sitting on top of a large stack of papers on a wall, as a paper weight. Behind the wall are large construction barrels and 5 gallon paint cans left from some work over the summer. And, given the rain in the last week they were all full of water. I look over and see all the papers blowing to the other side of the wall. I rescue them (some out of the water) and pick up the keys, but forget that my phone was also sitting there. Forty-five minutes later I find it in the barrel and it is shot. Alas. All I can do is laugh.

posted by CP @ 9:50 AM 0 thoughts