The Old Cellphone

I'm not one who goes for the latest gadgets available in town. Budget constraints aside, the practical person in me is usually happy to make do with whatever I have.

Thus that partially explains that so far, I have only owned 3 cellphones. I bought my first in 2002, long after others had decided that they just could not survive without taking the cells everywhere. It was the basic Nokia model that cost me a princely sum of RM350. It served its purpose well, and hence was good enough for me.

Some 2 years later, I fell in love with a Samsung clamshell that a friend paraded in the office. My perfect excuse to upgrade came when the Nokia conviniently started losing its functionalities. So I used my bonus to buy my dream cellphone.

The buttons took some getting used to, but the good looks more than make up for the minor inconvinience. Besides, aren't we all creatures of habits? It was just a matter of time (and lots of practice) before I got perfectly comfortable with the functions.

Alas, the cellphone had a 'cleaning' session barely a year after being in my possession. I left it in my jeans pocket. The maid put the jeans in the washing machine. By the time I realised it, the washing machine was already at 'drain' function.

DH duly disassembled the phone and left it dry on a towel. I didn't work.

We sought advice from our friends. My staff came up with a more dreary story, about seeing a furry ball spinning in her washing machine. Apparently the very unfortunate cat was taking a nap, not realizing that her comfy 'mattress' was a bundle of dirty laundry in a washing machine. The cat survived, but my staff was shaken. Since then, as expected, she was careful to inspect her washing machine before pressing the 'on' button.

DH's friend was more helpful. He suggested keeping the cellphone with Thirsty Hippo in a sealed bag overnight. Apparently he had tried that method and it worked.

DH bought 2 Thirsty Hippo and kept the whole thing sealed for two nights. Alas, we were in no luck. Obviously DH's friend's cellphone was not washed in a washing machine like mine.

The next step was to bring the phone to the authorised dealer. After giving vague explanations about what was wrong with the phone, we left it with the dealer. He took it back to the manufacturer for repair.

Two weeks later the diagnosis came. They correctly figured out that the phone must have been immersed in water and gone through vigorous shaking, but they could not repair the phone.

So that was how I came to own my third phone, a Sony Ericsson, in 2006. The Samsung was relegated to DD's toy box. She happily played with it and banged it on every hard surface in the house, particularly on the door grill. She took it with her on our outings, and sometimes ended up leaving it in the car for days on end.

Then a couple of months ago DH decided to test the phone. To my surprise, it was working perfectly alright. DH claimed that he wasn't really surprised, that in fact he sensed that the phone was okay. Yeah sure, now that the phone is completely dry, why wouldn't it work, right?

My BIL borrowed the phone for a couple of weeks when his was broken. And now, my MIL is using the phone. As for DD, she hasn't complained about missing 'her' phone.