Hang Ups

Back in the olden days, when cell phones had just come out, a man came into the furniture store where I worked, pulled out this thing that looked like a brick with a stick on it, and called his wife to describe a curio cabinet he was looking at. I couldn't believe it. How ostentatious! Then Dennis insisted I get one.  It stayed in my purse most of the time, although it made my purse weigh about the same as a small child when I carried it, because I was embarrassed by it, except Dennis would call me every once in awhile to say "Can you hear me?  How about now?" and then I had to bring it out in public.

Flash forward to now and if I don't have my cell phone in my pocket I get kind of panicky, especially if I'm away from home. What if I get lost? What if someone gets sick?  What if there's a sale going on and I don't hear about it? 

Because of that I'm very careful not to lose it.  I keep it in my pocket at all times except when it is on the charger right on my bed table. OK, sometimes I do  have to search for it: Down the inside of my chair. On the floor of the car. In the window-well of the car. On the dog food bin. But it always turns up. And if it doesn't, you just dial the number and follow the ringing.

Well, there was that one time when  I had come back in from the car to look  for it on the charger by my bed,---not there---so I simply called it.  I could hear it ringing, tantalizingly near, somewhere close. Not in the pillow case, not under the blankets, not anywhere!  I kept calling it from the house phone and could hear it ringing, taunting me, but could not find it. I was just about to lay down on the floor to look under the bed, which would have necessitated a call from SOME kind of phone for help to get me back up, when I happened to feel in the back pocket of my jeans.  Who puts their phone in the BACK pocket of their jeans???

It turned up in a flower pot once, down among the geraniums that I had just watered.  I don't know! I think I had it in my shirt pocket for some reason and it slipped out.  And why did I go back out there to look? Who knows. I pray a lot about my phone, that's all I think it could be. I'm glad God cares about the little things in our lives and not just emergencies. Well, sometimes it seems like an emergency to me when I'm looking for it.

Here is one of my famous household hints: If you are working out in the yard and you come in through the laundry room and the washer is going, don't just take your muddy jeans off right there and throw them in the washer. First take your cell phone out of your pocket.  Even a bag of rice won't rescue a cell phone once it has been agitated, rinsed and spun.

I know about the rice (if your cell phone gets wet, take it completely apart, battery, Sim card and all and seal everything up inside a Ziploc bag of dry rice and leave it for 24 hours or so. Thank you, Google) because I may have dropped my phone in the toilet once. Or twice.  What?? I'm not the first person to have done it or how would Google have known what to tell me to do?  I saw a TV commercial for a toilet that is so powerful it can flush down golf balls and tools and things. I'm glad I didn't spring for that one when we put in a new toilet last year. But, anyway, the rice only works sometimes.

The guy at the AT&T store doesn't want you to know about the rice.  He just wants to sell you another phone.  So if you have an extra phone because the rice actually finally worked the second time you tried but you didn't trust it and went and bought a new phone, you'll be ready for anything.  It would be wise, however, to take the phone out of your pocket when you go into the bathroom and leave it on the counter till you are finished in there. But don't drop it in the water while washing your hands. I have my rice still in the bag, just in case.

All around me I see people using their smart phones.  My kids have every App known to man.  They even have every translation of the Bible ever written on their smart phones; they are ready for a Sword Drill at any moment. There are games, fish swimming, lips that make you look like you are a goober when you hold them up to your mouth, and much more, and they even talk to each other face to face from 100 miles apart.

 I don't think I want a phone that is smarter than me though.  Not until they make one smart enough to stay out of trouble and find it's way home when it gets lost.