My Luck Really Sucks Sometimes

This past Tuesday evening I was in Nashville airport, getting ready to board my plane, and speaking on my cell phone to a friend. Suddenly my cell phone decided to give up the ghost. With its dying breath, it displayed three deep bands of color on the screen and a message that disappeared quickly: Image not found. That didn't sound good at all. No matter how many times I reset the phone, pulled out the battery (which still had a good charge on it), the phone would no longer come back to life. When I got home, I left the battery out all night and then tried it again Wednesday morning: same results. That was it - I needed my phone. I get a lot of client calls on it. I took it to the Sprint store, the one where I always end up waiting an hour in line. When it was finally my turn, I put the battery in, turned it around so that the tech could see it, and turned it on. The shock on his face at seeing nothing but three bands of color....never happened. The phone was working! It was really I who was in shock, but no matter, the phone was working. I told him about what had happened and he told me that if it happened again to come back.

So everything was fine until the phone acted a little strange and I reset it Friday morning. Oops - nothing but pretty colors again. I took my wife to lunch and then we headed to the Sprint store, where after an hour's wait in line, I showed the tech the problem. He told me that they would need to take the phone in the back and get it checked out to see if there was any water damage in the phone. If there was, that would void the warranty. I told him I was sure there wasn't and he told me to come back in an hour. When I went back and waited in line again, they told me the phone had no water damage and they gave me a brand new phone.

Jump to today. I went to the grocery store to pick up some dog food. When I got home, I gave my dog his food and then filled up his water bowl. When I placed it on the floor, my cell phone fell out of my shirt pocket...smack into the middle of the water bowl. No matter where you live in the world, you probably heard a distant liturgy of curses that would make a sailor blush. Water damage? Yah, you betcha, two days after I got the new phone! I knew what I had to do - take the battery out immediately and let it sit for a couple of days to dry out. And that's still no guarantee. The water managed to seal the battery cover well enough that it took me about 3 minutes to get it off. Who knows now if it's going to work again. I suspect not. And this time I'll be liable for the cost of a new phone. My phone costs $550 new. Just shoot me now and take me out of my misery, please.