It was one of those things. On Sunday morning, I had merely turned away from the sink after tying up my hair in a ponytail and my iPhone leapt from my hand and into the (mercifully clean) toilet bowl.
I fished it out as fast as I could, pulled off the cover and swaddled the phone in a towel. “Rice!” said Derek. Yes, that’s the cure: submerge the phone in a bag of rice and let it sit a good long while. The rice draws out the moisture. So I powered it down and grabbed the first bag of rice I could find. In went the phone and there it sat until Monday morning. Derek suggested I was trying to start a new iPhone case craze.
So what was the day like, without an iPhone? Liberating! In fact, it was really noticeable, and a little annoying, when hubby would tune out of what was happening with us – lunch was ready, or whatever – to fiddle with his phone. It felt like it did a while after I had quit smoking and I got a face full of someone else’s second-hand cloud. “This is what I’ve been inflicting on other people?” I freely admit that I’m addicted to my iPhone. It connects me, amuses me and keeps me company. But other than its convenience, I didn’t miss it. But I’ll admit I was pretty happy when it powered up in the morning!
There was also something to occupy my attention. A few years ago when friends of ours bought a house for cheap on the condition that they move it to a different location, we found an abandoned table in the rubble of stuff taken from inside. Derek grabbed it and we’ve had it in the garage, waiting for the right time and purpose. It’s an old school table, maybe from the 50s or 60s, and may have even been a teacher’s desk. The green rubbery top was glued on with something NASA must have invented because we broke a belt sander trying to remove it. Derek came up with the brilliant idea of removing the top and turning it over. Underneath he found beautiful pine that just needed sanding and varnishing. He put new trim around it and I pearlized it with some Van Gogh products. I used a couple of Magic Erasers to clean up the legs and body and then applied restoration oil. I thought the ribbons of red on the legs, aging and imperfect, were best left as they were. Out went the sagging, cheap old computer desk and in came the table.
My only concern with changing anything in this room is ending up with a buzz through my microphone. Sometimes these things happen after very little disturbance and on rare occasions, after no disturbance at all. But everything is still clean and clear. And like all of the things I love best in our home, my desk now has a little story behind it and a new life thanks to a little elbow grease and a lot of patience.
Okay, I’m clearly missing something about society at large, but why was your Iphone in the bathroom to start with? And a better question, why wasn’t the lid of the toilet down and thus the phone wouldn’t have fallen in?
Well if you must know, I was just popping in to put my hair up before cooking and I had my phone with me so I put it on the counter. We normally put the lid down because of the cat but I guess Derek thought I was going to use it. It was just a perfect storm of missed habits and slippery hands. I didn’t dry them very well after I washed them I guess because that phone went airborne as soon as I turned!