“I Wonder...?”
It was a typical busy pre-departure evening of bustle in the household: packing, retrieving items, managing food to go versus food to throw, emptying garbage bins, you know the drill. Loads of laundry had been braided into the scenario, and everything was on track. I was beginning to imagine I might even get to bed at a decent hour.
As I was starting the final load of laundry, I whipped off my terrycloth bathrobe with the grimy sleeves, since it was the towel load and hardly full. On the way up the stairs, I heard an uncharacteristic thumping sound and fretted distractedly that maybe the washing machine was going on the fritz. “I wonder what that is,” I thought as I headed into the kitchen. Something must have fallen into the dirty pile, maybe. As the muffled “thump, thump” continued, my curiosity was nudged a couple of more times, but only vaguely, since whatever it was would have to wait until I got home. Stupid washing machine...
About ten minutes later I was trying to recall which car rental agency I’d be using the next day. It was only after walking through the house twice looking for my cellphone to check the info, and even calling it from the house phone that the lightbulb exploded in my mind.
Spouting expletives, I raced to the basement. Paused the wash. Yanked open the door. Rummaged in the soapy water, reaching, reaching, damn it, damn it! until I pulled the dripping phone from the depths. Damn it some more!!
Yep. I washed my Samsung, and it was in the water for more than 10 minutes, late in the evening before a weeklong business trip out of state. I yanked off the protective cover, dried every surface, and pounded the end where the earphone, battery, and speaker openings yawned soddenly against my other hand. Drips and drops of fluid emanated with every whack. Oh...this is NOT good....
Miraculously, the screen looked normal, but I have past experience with wet phones, and knew only time would tell the true outcome. Grabbing the bag of rice from the pantry, I filled a baggie. I turned off the phone, pounded out a few more drizzles of soapy water, then laid it like an offering inside the bag, surrounding it with a thick shroud of rice along with every appropriate prayer for a good outcome.
My go-to prayer (thanks to Anne Lamott) is very plain: “please please please.” It is back-ended with another: “thank you thank you thank you.” I’ve had very good luck over the years with this phrasing. Finally, I went to bed (remembering to use an alternative alarm, since my phone serves that function, too), and tried to quell the “what if” and “if/then” scenarios that began to play out rigorously in the dark of an unsettled night.
What if my alarm doesn’t work? (You’ll miss your plane.) If the phone’s dead, then how do I know what car rental I used? (I have time to boot up the laptop before leaving the house, so, ok, got that covered for now.) What if the delivery people can’t reach me? (The purpose of the trip was to manage a complicated project in the Colorado mountains.) If they can’t deliver, then what? (Employ old family saying: “Don’t borrow worries from tomorrow.”) What if I can’t access my contacts on my phone? (I finally remembered my seldom-used tablet, and got up to retrieve and charge it preemptively.) There was a lot of wishing going on there in the dark.
Six A.M.: zero-hour. Test time, while there was still a (small) cushion for working the alternative scenarios lined up impatiently in my head. I approached the kitchen counter like a supplicant: humbly, cautiously, hopefully. Opened the bag. Cleared all grains and husk fragments from the phone’s shiny-clean (!) surfaces and openings. Pressed the power button. Held my breath.
Miracle of miracles, this story has an unlikely and happy ending: my phone turned on! Although the speaker was a bit gurgly initially, even that ended, and now, days later, it seems to be doing fine. Oh, YES!: thank you thank you thank you indeed!
Take-home lessons: Have a back-up plan and know how to use it. Keep the most relevant names and numbers in writing in your wallet. Be real about the paralytic nature of losing function in this techno-day&age. What immediate interruptions would spell disaster or serious mayhem if you were to lose your handheld computer/phone/contacts list/flashlight/photo album/entertainment system/game chest/all around lifeline to, well, your LIFE? Think about it.
And for heaven’s sake, don’t put your phone in the pocket of your bathrobe before deciding, spur of the moment, that the sleeves are grimy and it needs to be washed.
