Someone’s been talking on my phone.
This has been my suspicion from the beginning. When I opened that sleek Apple packaging over a year ago, I was sure, even then, that my “brand new” phone is not new. For one thing, it works slowly. I’m talking rotary-phone-slow. For instance, when there is an alert for a new text, I click on it and wait expectantly, staring at a blank, gray screen for a solid 45 seconds. Or when I switch between iPod and Pandora, same thing. Something ain’t right. It’s like finding a few bites out of my bowl of porridge.
I guess we are all buying stuff that looks new to us, but previously has been purchased then returned. The serpentine, post-Christmas lines at customer service counters would remove any doubt about that. For most items, this is insignificant, but one time, I learned that “pre-owned” matters. A lot. I was dressing for a semi-formal dinner on a wintry evening, and I hurriedly opened a “brand new” box of pantyhose. The box itself looked new and had been completely sealed. There was no foreshadowing to the nightmare I would encounter when I pulled those suckers slowly from the box. As the first pair of stockings swung there in front of my widened eyes, I could see the distinct shape of another woman’s leg. The thighs were stretched out. The heels, darkly smudged. There were snags and runs from the toes to the knees. They smelled like feet.
Gagging, I dropped them and pulled out the second pair. Identical. That’s when I screamed and ran for my life, looking back over my shoulder to make sure they weren’t following me. Needless to say, my legs were goosepimpled and bare as I made my way across the January ice in my cocktail dress that night. Talk about buyer’s remorse.
Perhaps it was this bizarre pantyhose experience that prompted me to take my “pre-owned” phone complaint to the Apple Store where, after they conducted some kind of 32- point inspection in the back room (so they tell me), they reported only, “Well, there is no evidence of water damage. Ma’am, there is no apparent reason this phone wouldn’t be working properly.” Of course the thing operated at supersonic speeds when I was standing at the helpdesk, weakly insisting it was slow. “Your phone is fine,” the Apple associate in the fringed ponytail assured me with a condescending nod.
“No, there must be a reason …” I started.
“Daniel is next,” she spoke loudly, signaling to a gentleman in the queue behind me.
I want a new phone. Yet I can’t justify spending the money on such a purchase right now when I know my current phone works well enough. Sure, it is hesitant between applications, but is that really a reason to get rid of it? I needed to find something more compelling.
I found it the same place you can find almost anything you need: the library. In the middle of my regular book hunt a few weeks ago, I paused to step into the restroom. It was of the unisex, one-person-at-a-time variety. Immediately, I noticed there was nowhere to hang my purse. Well, I wasn’t going to place my purse on the nasty tile floor, so I put it in the sink. Except the faucet was an automatic faucet. And my purse was wide open, like a baby bird mouth begging for more. There was no way to turn off the water, and the more I tried to yank my bag out of the sink, the more my waving hands kept the stream flowing. My purse filled completely with water, and my cell phone was swimming in the middle.
Bingo, Snippy Apple Store Girl! I got water damage.
I drain my purse and race to my brother’s house before going to the phone store. Mistake of the Week.
“Which new phone do you think I should buy, huh?” I grin, bouncing. He reads savvy tech blogs and always provides sound consumer advice.
Then I explain the library sink deluge, and he laughs before walking over, palm up. “Here, give it to me.” A few minutes later, he returns, shaking my phone in a Ziploc bag of dry rice like it’s Shake N’ Bake chicken. “I read once that dry rice draws out the moisture,” he says. “Leave the phone sealed in here for a good three days. It’ll be fine. You don’t need to buy a new phone.” Then he hands me my bag of phone chicken, and I am sulking. I despise his savvy tech blogs.
For the next three days, I peer at the baggie, praying this is an old wive’s tale that doesn’t work, but it does. Now I am so mad, I could spit on my slow dry phone chicken.
So, let this be your savvy tech blog read for the day, people: if you ever have phone water damage, zip the thing up in a rice-filled baggie for three days. Your cell will continue to work, whether you want it to or not. And when it does, beware that if you text me today, I will probably get the message opened and read by the middle of next week. At which time I might cave and buy a new phone for myself anyway. Then you can forget your baggie and have my old phone.
It may be gently used, but I promise it doesn’t smell like feet.