Broken Phone Tips
Here are a few helpful tips on what to do when your smartphone breaks, organized into five easy stages:
STAGE ONE
- Ask yourself if this is a dream. Is this a dream? I mean, who drops their phone into a pot of boiling minestrone? Who does that?!
- Try drying off the battery with a hair dryer. It’s probably just that the battery shook loose, right? Right?
- Somebody once told me putting your phone in a bag of dried barley overnight can wick away the moisture. (Although, this sounds a little like black magic, so maybe hold off.)
- Hopefully all the info is synced onto your computer. Think of the last time you synced to your... I MEAN, WHO DROPS A PHONE INTO SOUP?!!
STAGE TWO
- Pace wildly in ever-tighter circles.
- Contemplate whether you believe in A) a spiteful God or B) no God.
- Call the TechGuys Store about repairing your phone. Hold up; their info was in your contacts list on your phone. DAMMIT! It’s a catch-42!
- Wait, 42 isn’t the right number. What’s the right number? Catch-44? Let me just Google it on my… DAMMIT!
- Call Charlie to ask if he can look up the TechGuys’ number one his smartphone. Also, ask him about the catch-42 thing. But... how are you going to call Charlie without a phone? Stupid Charlie!!!
STAGE THREE
- Check to see if you still have a landline. Where was that phone jack when you moved in? Behind the headboard? If you do have a phone line, maybe you can remember Charlie’s number.
- See someone walking outside the bedroom window with a smartphone. Yell out the window that you’ll give them $100 for their phone.
- Tell your neighbor you’ll only stop yelling if she lends you a bag of dried barley.
STAGE FOUR
- Notice your hand is shaking from Twitter withdrawal.
- Sit in an empty bathtub for a while.
- Go ahead and eat the minestrone. Then some ice cream. Then something salty, to cut the sweetness. Maybe nachos. Or hummus.
- Or potato chips. Then more ice cream.
- Regret the final text you sent before dropping your phone. If only you’d known it was the last one, you wouldn’t have typed “LMAO.” So disrespectful.
- Sit fully-clothed under the running water in your shower.
STAGE FIVE
- Take a long, hard look at your smartphone. It's no longer your phone; it's just an empty shell. Your real phone is out there in the network somewhere.
- Look around. Finally see your apartment for the first time in months. It’s filthy. With no Facebook available, you might as well clean up a little.
- Get eight hours of sleep for once. I guess it’s not that important that you beat your high score at Fruit Ninja.
- Wake up next to someone. Who is this person? Oh, it’s your spouse.
- Try to convince your spouse to stop reading his or her Kindle. Drag them away from it if you have to.
- Take a nice, leisurely morning walk together. Remember what freedom feels like.
- Pass by an AT&T Store. You might as well just pop in a get another phone.
- Sit on the curb and get in a few good tweets and maybe five or six rounds of Fruit Ninja.
- Mmmm… sweet, sweet smartphone. You feel so right.
