A recharge and two sugars
Grandad August 31st, 2009
I love the way technology works when it’s not supposed to and doesn’t when it does, if you know what I mean.
I needed to bring my mobile phone with me on holidays because I had to make some calls during my trip. I suppose I could make them from a phone box or somewhere, but it is handier to just bring my mobile.
About an hour before we were due to leave, I remembered my phone and checked it.
Dead.
Dead as a fucking Dodo.
Not a peep out of it.
I tried everything but it resolutely refused to switch on. I tried removing the battery and jiggling it. Nothing. The screen was as blank as Mary Harney’s face when she’s asked about the future of the health service.
I was a little worried about this, as I had a lot of girlfriends’ important numbers stored. I phoned our K8 and she managed to rob TAT’s phone as he was asleep, and said I could borrow it. This was grand, so I swapped the little bit of plastic inside, deleted all TAT’s stored numbers and I was finally ready to go.
I haven’t the faintest idea why, but I decided to pack my dud phone as well. Maybe I thought I could get it fixed in France, or maybe it was just a drop of dementia. Who knows?
On our second morning after a hotel overnight stop, Herself was sleeping off her hangover having a little lie in, so I sat out at the car, checking a few things. I came across my useless mobile phone, so I idly started poking it and prodding it. It was still as dead as Cowen’s last brain cell.
I sat there wondering what I was going to do with it when it slipped out of my hand and fell……….. straight into my mug of tea which I had placed on the ground.
I cursed because it was a nice mug full and I had only had one sip out of it. I watched the phone sink beneath the golden liquid and waited while one last little bubble broke the surface.
I took another swig out of the mug, as I don’t believe in wasting good tea even if it is a little Nokia flavoured. I then realised I could see the end of the phone just below the surface, so I fished it out. Not wanting to waste any of the precious liquid, I took the back off and poured the contents into my mug.
The phone of course was finished. Even I could see that. The screen had gone all milky and the circuits would be shot.
Just for old times sake, more than anything else I pressed the power switch, maybe in the hope that there would be one last spectacular little shower of sparks, befitting the end of a faithful phone.
But the fucking thing worked perfectly!
I slammed the little bit of plastic in, and fired it up properly. It dripped a few times, but everything seem in full working order, if a little wet.
It just goes to prove the restorative power of a good mug of tea?
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