CELL PHONE TRAGEDY

(This was recently sent to me by Sister K and is reprinted here with her permission.)

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I placed my cell phone on top of the glass of water that I always have on my bedside table. The reason that I did such a foolish thing was that my cat always drinks the water out of my glass, and I thought it would be a good way to prevent this from happening. You guessed it....the phone fell into the glass of water.

I immediately fished the phone out of the water and dried it off, but it was too late. The damage had already occurred. The phone sounded a few half-hearted beeps and then did a flatline. It was dead as a door nail.

I frantically googled "phone water damage" and came up with quite a few interesting ways to solve the dilemma. One guy advised putting the phone into the microwave to dry out. Another said to drop it into a glass of alcohol, which would dry up the water and make the phone as good as new. Others advised putting it in a regular oven on the "low" setting or using the blow dryer on it. But the overwhelming advice was to place it in an airtight container of rice, which apparently will suck the moisture out of the phone. "Be sure to use uncooked rice as opposed to cooked rice" was one piece of advice. Duh......

Anyway, my phone is sitting in the rice as we speak and I'm waiting to see if this works. Otherwise I'll have to buy a new phone because apparently the Apple Store will not replace a phone damaged by water, even though it's still under warranty. This brings me to another interesting tidbit of information that I discovered while surfing.

The iPhone has a tiny hidden indicator that shows if it's been dropped in water. If you look into the hole where the headset can be connected, you'll see a white dot. The white dot turns red if it's been exposed to water. That way the Apple guys know if the phone really went haywire of its own accord, or if you dropped it into the Jacuzzi when you had one too many Manhattans. This brought up a whole new array of solutions (mostly unethical) for fixing the problem of the "red dot." Some said to put a drop of bleach into the hole, which will turn the dot back to white. Others advised using a toothpick with a little Liquid Paper on the end of it. According to these Youtubers, the guys at the Apple Store are so inept that they won't realize that Liquid Paper is covering the red dot, and you'll get a brand new phone out of the deal.

I'm not quite that depraved yet and so I'm waiting to see if the rice (uncooked, of course) remedy works.

I MUST INTRODUCE BRENDA TO SUNSHINE

There's nothing like a little Karma on a Monday afternoon to brighten one's day. Having survived my week of Kitchen Duty last week and manage to steer clear of Brenda after our run-in, I got to witness her making a complete fool of herself, not that I would ever take pleasure in that, of course.

It seems Brenda decided to make a pot of black coffee this afternoon and then ran back to her office to make a phone call. Unfortunately, she forgot to put the coffee pot back on the burner, causing scalding coffee to spill all over the kitchen floor. I happened to be walking past the kitchen door when this was unfolding and caught sight of her, mop in hand, cursing her stupidity. I couldn't help myself and blurted out "Gosh, I'm sure glad it isn't my week for Kitchen Duty. What a mess!" at which point Brenda looked up from her mop and just glared at me.

Call it Bad Karma or whatever, but after last week's derision I couldn't help but gloat.

I DIDN"T NEED THAT HOUR ANYWAY

In an effort to win Lorrie Veasey's fantastic contest: http://ournameisblog.blogspot.com/

I am adding my two cents about how the recent time change impacts my life and whether or not I like the concept in the first place. Or at least I think that was the assignment. Frankly, I'm punchy from loss-of-sleep so forgive me if I got it wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.

Mainly, this whole Spring Forward / Fall Back campaign used to be to help farmers gain time to bring in the harvest and milk sleepy cows or somesuch. Apparently, however, the farmers all know it's actually just a marketing stunt to get consumers to shop more. More recently, there was also a clever ploy by certain politicians to help in their re-election bids. Several of them got together to lobby for extending Daylight Savings hours and I'll be damned if they didn't succeed. Now it's almost perpetually light outside save for a few weeks in late Fall, early Winter. I don't think the cows much care, though.

On a personal level I actually like the concept of Springing Forward because it gives me more time for golf and sailing. I just wish they wouldn't be so fickle about the whole concept and take back the hour in the Fall. I would prefer permanently having that Spring Forward thing if it would allow me to really get my money's worth during "Twilight Golf".

Having said all that, I have the kind of job where I am (apparently) in charge of reminding our hourly paid employees that the clocks are either going forward or backward. I have to send out signage twice a year, to be posted next to the time clock, so everyone knows when to show up for work. I find this annoying, however, as no one reminds me when the clocks go forward or backward and when I'm supposed to report to my cube. I usually have to remind Paco and then we both end up forgetting about it just like this past weekend. We did not adjust clock one in our house before we turned in Saturday night. Fortunately, we had all day Sunday to change them before Monday rolled around and we risked being late for work. Oddly, his super-fantastic Ray Bradbury-inspired ATOMIC clock, the one that's supposed to automatically adjust based on the big and little hands at the U.S. Naval Observatory, stayed stuck in the past. So much for technology. I will stick with my little battery-operated model, even if it is solely up to me to remember to change it.

BACK TO REALITY

I agree with Lorrie (“Our name is blog”) that one of the best things about going on vacation is the seemingly endless blog-worthy material generated on these junkets. At least I think it’s blog-worthy. I suppose someone somewhere might not agree, but they don’t have to read my blog. I bet they don’t even have their own blog so I’m not too worried about their opinion. I have a tendency to worry what others think about me but as long as they remain anonymous I will continue to write unfettered. Like Rush Limbaugh, if I worried about what other people thought about me I would never leave the house. Having said that, I really do wish he would stay home.

Now to answer a couple of questions about my last post: no BJ, the photo on my post “Shakedown on the Dinghy Dock” was not Officer Prentice. He would not allow me to snap he photo being as how he is a Super Secret Port Authority Big Shot working the vice and terrorism beat on the Dinghy Dock in Nevis. So I did what any self-respecting blogger would do in need of an illustrative photo for their post: I stole it off the internet. The fact that it happened to be a photo of that somewhat confused and slightly effeminate patrolman from Reno 911 is not my problem. Paco recognized him immediately, which I find disturbing, but the therapist says not to worry. It’s probably just some middle-aged, curious faze. At any rate, Officer Prentice did not appear to be batting for the other team and his uniform was actually white, but otherwise the similarities were incredible.

Second, Kwr221 asked if I was in St Kitt’s last week when she was there and yes, I was! I can’t believe we were both on the same tiny island at the same time and there was not some kind of feeding frenzy from the reporter's pool there. I mean, doesn’t everyone in the Eastern Caribbean know who we are? Apparently Homeland Security knows exactly who Lorrie is and are ardent followers, so why wouldn’t the folks on St Kitt’s know about Kwr and me, too? Anyway, I’m sorry we didn’t hook up but if I gave out specifics in advance of all my vacation plans Paco and I would be inundated with paparazzi and we wouldn’t have any peace. Next time I will place a classified ad in the local newspaper with some cleverly worded clues revealing my plans, like “Yes, Mrs. Barnes, look for me in the window wearing the purple hat.” The more intrepid of my followers will no doubt be able to figure out my destination. No need to broadcast it.

Meanwhile, I will continue to fill my Steno pad with clever entries about my travels and try my best not to embelish them where possible. It's only when someone I meet is not very funny or interesting and therefore not potentially entertaining blog material that I have to get creative. Fortunately, for once Officer Prentice made my job as a blogger really easy.