If I could walk into court to place blame for a dead cellphone, the guilty party would be my clothing.
Neither my blouse nor pants included pockets. That’s a violation against cellphone storage.
I had no choice, when taking my laundry to the basement for washing, but to place my cellphone atop the laundry sitting inside of a round basket. If I held the phone while holding the basket, the phone would have slipped out of my hand, dropped to the floor, and possibly cracked the screen.
I can’t allow that just because my clothing has no pockets. The solution was placing the phone atop the laundry.
Lots of tasks float in and out of my mind as I walk two levels down to the basement. I arrive at the washing machine, open the lid, and invert the laundry basket’s contents before adding liquid soap and programming the machine to the cold water setting.
An hour later I returned to the basement with basket in hand and started removing the freshly-cleaned clothes from the machine.
My hands wrap around an object that I haven’t missed since the washing began.
It’s the cellphone, clean as the day I purchased it one year ago.
I’m surprised as I remember how the phone entered the machine, but I’m not alarmed. Maturity has taught me that there are lots of things worse than a clean, dead cellphone.
- Household fire
- Health problems
- Vehicular accident
There are many more potential problems, but you understand my point.
I disconnected my landline phone years ago and have no regrets, so my thoughts immediately begin with:
- My mom can’t contact me and will think something is wrong
- I have to wait for my daughter to come home to use her phone
- What other tasks are on my list that don’t require a communications device?
This carelessness (I still blame my clothing) wasn’t a hassle until I arrived at my favorite warehouse club to purchase a new phone. That’s when problems began.
I learned that phones are no longer purchased outright. Perhaps this isn’t true for all carriers but is true for me.
The phone is so costly that it’s paid on installment each month within the phone bill, and I have to call the carrier by the same time next year to pay the balance of the phone if I wish to do so.
That’s all I could understand from the representative. From there, the conversation went downhill. The rep was not adept at speaking to me in fifth grade language, and that’s what’s needed to understand the terms and conditions for buying a phone. After 15 minutes of trying to comprehend the deal, I gave up and walked away in frustration.
My next stop was an official store operated by the cell phone carrier. That representative was more adept at explaining, in plain language, the terms and conditions for purchase and plan maintenance. I don’t know if I got a better deal than the first seller, but I understood everything he said. I didn’t like the price (who does?); I did walk out satisfied after purchasing and activating a new phone.
Here’s what I learned in that quiet, no-phone-access time frame:
1. Don’t get mad at clothing you willingly purchased or threaten to take it to court for not having pockets.
2. Getting upset, angry, or distraught about little things is wasted energy needed to solve other matters.
3. Produce your money or credit cards without pressure and only when you fully understand the purchase details.
How calm would you be if you found your clean, yet dead cellphone in the washing machine?
