Fone fumble

As much as I hate to admit my mistakes and mishaps, I feel that it’s only fair to share a bit of my humility – and it will help to counterbalance the bragging and arrogance I generally display. Oh, and I also fear that it may hit the grapevine so it’s better to ‘fess up now…

This past summer, I purchased an uber-gadget phone; one that many of my friends and family members mocked me for because they couldn’t understand the need to spend so much money on a phone. (In my defence, I actually do use the majority of the features and it’s easier than carrying a small laptop with me everywhere.)

My 10-year-old nephew, Haden, loves the fact that I have such a cool phone but has pointed out on several occasions that I’ve become rather clumsy with it. He seems to be there each time I drop the blasted thing, and giggles as he scrambles to pick up the pieces. He then mock-lectures me about taking better care of my phone because it’s so expensive. After putting the phone back together, I’ve always felt slightly superior in telling the kid: “See, it still works. I paid for quality and endurance as much as for gadgets!” (And then the kid rolls his eyes.)

Well, it would seem that my luck has run out. Whilst at the Edinburgh Castle with Mum and a friend of Paul’s this past weekend, I cleverly decided to point something out (with excitement) to Paul’s friend – using the hand my phone was in. My hand quickly became a trajectory device for the phone, sending it flying before it fell to the cobbled stone path in front of us.

My first reaction was embarrassment, but also relief knowing that it would surely be fine, just like past times.

Wrong. Apparently, the phone didn’t care too much for the cobbled stones and upon picking up the display portion I could see just how badly shattered it was. Putting it back together (to the sounds of laughter) I was pleased to see that it still worked – it was just difficult to see the information on the screen because of the spider web effect of the shattered display.

Thankfully, Paul’s laughing friend is also a gadget geek and had the same model phone at home sitting un-used after a recent upgrade. Once his laughter subsided a bit, it was offered to me as a temporary solution. So, I have a loaner phone to use until I decide what to do next. I will do my best to not break that one, too. Maybe I need to invest in a little wrist strap for it… or some bubble wrap.

I think this story will entertain Haden very, very much and I’m sure he won’t let me forget it…