Can You Hear Me Now?

There are certain dangers associated with cell phones,

On the way to Florida a few months ago, my teenage daughter went to use the airplane facilities, and as she hit the flush button, she realized that clunk she’d heard a few seconds earlier wasn’t the passing of the crayons she’d eaten in first grade, but was actually her cell phone. It had fallen from her back pocket into the toilet and had been sucked into the bright blue world of chemical sanitation with the touch of a finger.

I had a near miss myself, the other night. In my sprint to the throne room (literal translation—potty emergency), I didn’t recall that my phone was in my back pocket until I heard the thud as it hit the ground. Better a thud than a splash, I say. Being a mature adult (literal translation—I forget things really quickly) by the time I finished, I forgot the phone had fallen and walked away.

The next day, when I went to get my phone from the charger, the cord was there but the phone was MIA. I couldn’t even call it to find it, because having spent 5 ½ hours on it the day before with a client, it was dead—the phone, not the client.

Fortunately for me, I drink a gallon of water a day (plus a wee bit of Diet Coke) so I am a Frequent Flyer on the Porcelain Express. Lo and behold, behind the toilet, next to a hair ball the size of Rhode Island, lay the phone, oblivious to the unsanitary conditions in which it dwelt.

Sometimes you’re better off dead—if you’re a cell phone in a back pocket.