Sunday, April 11, 2010

RIP to Hal's sleek black friend.

On Monday, my dear husband dropped his iPhone 3G in the toilet.  Of course, he was all in a panic so he woke me up from my day slumber to tell me this.  This is the third time he's jarred me awake to give me terrible news - once before it was when he didn't get "the" job - and the time before that I thankfully can't remember.  The water was clean he said - but he was still frantically drying it off, pushing buttons on the white flickering screen.  Nothing happened.  I took one look at the phone and gave it its last rites.  It's dead I tell him, and follow the call to the toilet that I get after waking up so suddenly.  After I flush, I walk out and Hal is pacing around the house trying to figure out how to save his beloved friend - his pocket companion since last year.  This little dead iPhone is actually his second.  The first he dropped on the ceramic floor of our bathroom in Maryland and busted the screen but fortunately the great guys at the Apple store there just gave him a new one, no questions asked.  But everyone knows they're not going to give you a new one when you drop yours in the toilet.  He called Apple, relayed every detail of his sad tale of woe, and they very affectionately said "we're so sorry." Then he called AT&T who offered to upgrade him right away to the 3GS for a nice price of $199, which we don't have.  The whole time, he's trying to figure out how to save it.  I keep reminding him, "honey, I'm pretty sure it's dead."  "I was trying to catch it - I saw it falling," he said to me as his voice almost cracked.  Poor guy.  Part of me wanted to call him a dumb ass and part of me wanted to hug him and cry with him, offer to have a ceremony for his sleek electronic friend.  Just when he'd started using Facebook too.

We make the trek to the AT&T store, and I'm silently cursing under my breath - this is not how I wanted to spend my afternoon.  We get him the cheapest little Go Phone made by Nokia and now I'm going to save $30 per month because I no longer have to pay for his iPhone data plan.

When we arrive home, Hal is still devoted to the idea of saving the phone.  We research this problem on the internet, typing in the Google search bar "iphone dropped in toilet" and get all sorts of tutorials on how to revive the little guy.  So we bury him in a Tupperware bowl full of dry white rice and proceed to just wait it out.  A few days later, when I'm up at night all alone, I realize that the phone is still in the rice.  I get it out, put my SIM card in it and try to power it up.  I tell myself that if the thing comes on, I'm waking his ass up - even if it's four in the morning.  But alas, it doesn't do anything despite me pushing the power button.  In an instant I move on, and being the money-grubbing entrepreneur I am, I decide that perhaps I can make back the $30 I spent for his Go Phone by selling the water-logged iPhone on Ebay for parts.  The screen is perfect right?  Somebody out there has a cracked screen and a hair of ingenuity so I figure he'll want to fix his own iPhone.  I turn on the lights, take a picture of the phone (sans all the rice) and list it on Ebay with a starting price of 99 cents.  A few hours later a guy offers me ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for the thing!  I change the list price, he bids, and I end the auction early.  Unbelievable!  I feel kind of slithery inside because Hal's sorrowful misfortune has now saved me thirty bucks a month and made me a hundred extra dollars and I can't help but smile and laugh out loud.  A hundred bucks I squeal!

I've got a nice piece of woods and a dumpy little house connected to a swamp.  You interested?

2 comments:

Melissa said...

Tell Hal I had a GoPhone for almost 3 years and it was [SERIOUSLY] the most dependable phone I ever had.
Sorry, guys.

WritingsForLife said...

you are an evil wife! :-D

I thoroughly enjoyed this post even though a part of me still feels really bad for your husband. I have an iphone myself and I constantly afraid of losing it or breaking it. I think your husband can use some sympathy at this point, it really is a loss.

:-)