There are all kids of spillage in our lives… And I’ve dealt with my fair share of it…..food, drink, lube, etc. But in all my experiences very little spillage had been worse than spilling my phone into a toilet.
It didn’t happen the way you think. I was NOT on my phone at the time, nor was I doing anything naughty. I was sitting there, doing my business with my phone in one hand (cuz I usually keep it in my back pocket so I take it out to NOT drop it into the toilet prepping to ‘sit’) And I noticed “something” on the toilet paper holder & thought I’d do a solid and clean it up. And while doing that the phone slipped right out of my hands and into the water.
I leapt up instantly and fished it right out, battling the self flushing mechanism of the toilet. I dried it the best I could while pulling up my pants and watched in dismay as the screen when white & flickered.
What I didn’t know to do THEN (and I do now) was to power it completely off. I just helplessly dried it and rushed home. I knew to put it in rice, but didn’t know THEN (and I do now) that I should have NOT waited until I got home to do so. I didn’t know the rice trick was a time sensitive issue and I should have rushed down to the market section of Target and bought rice and ziplock bags. And when I got home I didn’t know I should put the phone into zip locked rice, not just IN rice.
So yes, my phone was a lost cause.
Which was an interesting experience being without a phone for two days. I knew I relied upon it for a lot. I just didn’t realize how much I do on it on a moment to moment basis. For instance, I spent two days at work feeling confused about what day it was, what time it was, what my schedule was. The phone makes my dyslexia so very easy to manage. My own form of my family’s high anxiety, well conditioned since childhood by dyslexia is constantly questions my instincts, worried the dyslexia has me wrong. So whenever that happens, I confirm it on my phone. Example…
Me: Today’s date is… the 10th… the 10th? mmmm….yeah, I think it’s the 10th. Are ya SURE!
With a phone I just check. Without a phone, I question & question… & on that day, I laughed. I’ve lived with this quirk of mine for so long I don’t let it stress me. There have been so many challenges in my life that the minor ones just make me giggle.
So while many would freak losing their phone, I marveled at the new experience of appreciating just how much I used it for. I checked 8 emails daily; half work, half personal, I was unable to check anything until I got home to my computer each day. I had my calendar to remind me when I started and ended my work shifts and all my appointments ahead. I had my contacts, and it was THOSE I realized I needed back!
See when I managed to take my phone to the Apple store, they were able to retrieve SOME of my data by linking to my iTunes account but not my contacts! But I’d not gone in with my computer. So after paying for a new phone ($300… ouch!) I rushed home to see if I could manage it at home. And after a bit of searching found a backup dated a month before. See, my phone hadn’t been able to sinc up to iTunes for months, so I had all these photos and contacts and videos that never uploaded. The loss was sad but not nearly as sad as losing all my contacts.
But after another trip to the Apple store, computer in hand, we managed to get the backup uploaded and lo and behold my contacts were restored!!!
The true irony of the entire story was barely an HOUR before the Spillage I was bragging to a fellow employee (after seeing his banged up phone & him hearing how he’d dropped it so many times) about how my phone had been dropped at least 20 times, skidding under countless cars and “Look! Pristine!”
Gee, Fate…. did I really need a $300 lesson on being without a phone or was this a back of the head slap about being humble?