It's good to be .... connected -- and for future reference: cell phones don't float

I've had some pretty bad phone trouble this semester. Yessir.

First, I accidentally dropped my first phone in the toilet. Yep. It fell out of my pocket, and in it went. My heart sunk as I realized what had happened and some sort of raging thought of "you can save it!" ran through my brain as my hand plunged into the porcelain bowl without a moment's hesitation to retrieve my outdated but nonetheless reliable piece of technology.

Alas, it was too late. My trusty phone was dead.

"Oh, crap!" I thought. "What the heck am I supposed to do now?"
"First," I answered myself, "I'll go to the bathroom, which what you're doing here in the first place."

After task number one was completed, I borrowed a friend's cell phone to call my house in a panic... My mom saved the message, just so she can have the sheer joy of watching me listen to it when I'm home. Now that the situation is rectified, I can see the humor in it. I wasn't exactly capable of doing so at the time of said disaster.

Luckily I was a mere three weeks away from earning a cell phone upgrade from Verizon Wireless, so my parents went online and got me a new phone and within a month or so, I was connected yet again to the world I had briefly lost.

You should know, though ... I'm definitely more careful about where my cell phone is when I go to the bathroom.

Another little cell phone mishap occurred when I was packing to come home for Christmas Break.

I was on the phone with my mom at the time and she asks me blatantly "Make sure you have all your cords and your cell phone charger packed."

I laughed to myself because she's always saying that and I don't recall ever leaving anything crucial along those lines behind ever. That was until now...

"Don't worry, I've got it right here," I assured here as I pulled it out of my backpack and twirled it around my fingers.

I will never really know what exactly happened right at that moment. Did I, after messing around with it for a few seconds, put it down on my desk to be forgotten in Des Moines? Did I actually put it back in my backpack, only to lose it at the airport while looking for something else to do? Will I come back to the dorms in a few days and not find the charger for another week before realizing it got mixed up in a pile of things I decided not to bring home? Who knows?

What I do know is that when I needed to charge my cell phone, I realized I was very much without a way to do so. I searched all through my backpack and suitcase and could find nothing that even remotely resembled a cell phone charger.

A week or two later, we ordered another online and another week later it arrived and I immediately plugged my cell phone in to feast on a much-prolonged feast of energy, and once again I was connected to the world.

Cell phones are valuable things -- valuable, but not indestructable. They're not impervious to water and they're not some sort of solar-powered device. They need to be kept dry and charged... hopefully I'll remember that for next time.