iDrama (iPhone in the toilet)

Without exploring the sequence or kinesiology of the event itself, suffice it to say that I dropped my iPhone in the toilet.

For the record:  the water was clean.

Thanks to a superhuman adrenalin rush; (similar to lifting a car in order to save a life) my hand seized it from the bowl in a flash.

I immediately dried it with a towel and hit it hard with the hair dryer.  Yet, despite the fact that it was only immersed for a split second, water continued to ooze through its pores.

The iPhone did not work, but it clung to life.  It produced a blank white screen.  It had a mind of its own.  Turning it on or off had no effect. It turned itself on – blank and white for a few seconds – and then turned itself off.

If you were to frantically call Applecare, or the AT&T store,  or search Google – all of which  I did – you would learn that dropping the iPhone in the toilet is not uncommon. People do it every day.

What is uncommon is that the iPhone survives the trauma and lives to serve another day.  Mine did, and the guys at the store were surprised.  In fact, they said it was the first non-fatal iToilet story they had heard.

If you talk to anybody who knows anything about dropping cell phones in water, they’ll tell you to take out the battery, immediately, and put the phone in a bowl of rice.  With iPhone, you can’t remove the battery – which is why the iRecovery is so rare.

So – I put the phone in a dish and covered it with brown rice (much healthier than white).

Periodically, the iPhone turned itself on and the rice dish produced a soft glow.  At first, each time this happened, I seized the phone and took a look. White and blank.  The sick device was clearly fighting for it’s life.

After a couple of hours, the normal iPhone screen appeared.  I got pretty happy, thinking it had recovered – but it had not.  It acted funny, did not respond to my fingered instructions.  Would not turn on or off according to my schedule.  And there was so sound.  No phone.  No music.

My iPhone had a rough night.  Every few hours, lying there in the dark bedroom, it awoke and stirred, shining a sickly white cloud of light upon the ceiling, filling the room with its feverish, sporadic glow. After a few seconds, it would go back to sleep.

The next morning, it felt better.  It began to work.  It allowed me to make a few phone calls.  Except that it would turn itself on.  Every few minutes.  On its own schedule.  Throughout the day.  The next night, it was sick again.  It tossed and turned, coughed and slept.

After two days of fits and seizures, it normalized.  Now, it’s fine.  That was about a month ago.  I have four months to go before I’m eligible for an upgrade — if I want to spend a lot more money (which I don’t).

My children have all destroyed cell phones in a variety of ways.  Dropping them in the yard, in rain.  Losing them in snow. Dropping them on the hardwood floor, repeatedly.  My wife’s phone slipped from her pocket into the dishwasher.  It came out clean, but never worked again.  I’ve never had a lot of patience with this carelessness.  I never lost or dropped mine.  Now I have.