The dog ate my cell phone

You’ve just gotta love your friends. In this era of trying times, they can bring such joy and laughter into our lives. In some cases, they are better than a three-ring circus, especially since most of them don’t charge admission.


My bud, Robin, is a case in point. And she knows this is coming…


I invariably get phone calls when I’m in the shower. And as a freelance writer, there’s nothing regular about my “in the shower” time. I can roll out of bed, conduct a few phone interviews, write a story, email my material and then decide it’s time to hit the shower mid-morning. Since my job commute is a single flight of stairs in my home up to my office, this is no great shakes. Other times, the shower may not happen until mid afternoon, and in a few cases the day the dust doesn’t settle until into the evening.


But it’s just my mojo. All I have to do is get soaking wet and lathered up. The phone will inevitably ring. This is the reason I don’t attempt a shower at 3 a.m.


So the other day, I am…you guessed it…in the shower when the phone rang. I have talking caller ID (thank you, Panasonic!), and years ago I plugged in one of those nifty phone extensions in my bathroom just so I would know who was requiring my undivided attention. I don’t make an attempt to bolt toward the handset when I am wet and au natural. But at least it gives me enough of a heads-up to know whether I can complete the day’s ritual, or if I need to conduct business like the Queen of Sheba.


Robin left me a message, and I am checking it out. She’s got stuff to talk about. But what caught my attention was a one-liner: “I’ll call you back later in the week because I drove over my cell phone.”


Shut up! One of us has entered the twilight zone, and I don’t think it’s moi.


I ring her up at the number on the caller ID, which turns out to be her boyfriend’s house. I feel for my friend: she’s been a little bumfuzzled lately. She’s renting a room while her new house is being built. There’s a possible job interview that, should she get the job, would require her to move to another city before she’s ever moved into her new digs. She’s got a room and small degree of flexibility in the rental. No internet, no unlimited long distance, no TV. She’s operating without a communications net.


Her lifeline, metal encrusted and circuitry driven, rests in the palm of her hand. At least until a week ago.


She was apparently returning home from Greg’s house and had tucked her cell phone into her jacket pocket. By the time she got home, a two-hour drive, she realized the pocket was missing some precious cargo. Long story short: her one and only tool of worldly communication has given up the ghost, squashed to smithereens in what PBS calls a “driveway moment.”


My sides are about to split open as she recounts the tale. I am in utter disbelief that this could have happened to begin with, but a revelation hits me like a ton of bricks, and I share it with her. Not having access to one’s cell phone is today’s version of “the dog ate my homework.”


There are so many variations to this modern canine conundrum. Robin’s family members seem to be prone to cell phone calamities. Apparently, her sister washed her son’s cell phone one day. Now I realize how this can happen, at least to some extent. When I was a kid, the phrase “money laundering” had quite a different meaning than it does today. Moms, then and today, don’t necessary give the dirty clothes the once-over before scrubadubdubing.


Another member of Robin’s family apparently lost a cell phone in a hot tub accident. Now that one has class! Hope doesn’t float, and neither do cell phones. I am just imagining how this played out: the scramble to answer the call, the inevitable banana peel slip in a wet hand. That freeze-frame moment of disbelief on someone’s face. The ultimate act of resignation that follows as the phone sinks like a rock.


A former coworker of mine once lost a cell phone in a toilet accident. That just may be too much information right off the bat. Robin hinted something like that might have also happened to a family member.


The moral of the story: check your genes, and check your jeans. Then check your jacket.


Oh, Robin, give me a call. And another thing: when you get your new cell phone, make sure Decker doesn't get ahold of it...