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I didn’t mean to do it. It all happened so quickly I barely had time to react. It was 100% percent my fault, but up until that point phone related accidents just didn’t happen to me like they do to others.
I’ve been a no case iPhone guy since 2011 and in that time I’ve never cracked a screen. I treat my phones like I would a laptop because that’s exactly what they are. I don’t leave them sitting on wet tables, I always have a firm grip when I’m making a call or text, and I’m just careful in general. It’s never been a problem for me. But yesterday was different.
I had to use the facilities at my place of work. I got up from my desk and without thinking about it, I just put my iPhone 6 Plus in the pocket of my dress shirt. I finished peeing, and as I leaned down ever so slightly to flush, my phone fell out of my shirt pocket and into a fresh bowl of piss.
Panicked and completely grossed out, I flushed the toilet quickly, watching wave after wave of fresh water pour over my phone. I wasn’t going to reach into a bowl full of piss for a phone as I’m not a disgusting animal and I think I probably would have thrown up had I done that.
With several layers of paper towel, I fished it out of the urinal and knew immediately the phone, as anyone from the hit MTV show Laguna Beach would tell you, was donezo. Completely shot.
Urine and water were running rampant through the various computer parts in my iPhone, and there was nothing I could do but wallow in despair as tweets, text messages, and anonymous messages from Tumblr telling me how much I suck came in that I couldn’t access without looking at a laptop.
I tell you this story not as a cautionary tale. iPhones getting broken or severely damaged from water is about as commonplace as someone getting in a minor car accident or getting stung by a bee. It happens to everyone at some point.
It wasn’t until I broke this iPhone that I’ve come to realize how sickening they are, though. I spent the rest of my day completely lost. I’d go to reach for my phone where I usually put it next to my keyboard only to be reminded by the sobering fact that I didn’t have a phone. I couldn’t scroll Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or look at Snapchat and it was honestly one of the longest days of my life.
On the way home from work I had no music to listen to. At the gym I couldn’t tune into an NPR podcast that I usually save for Thursday nights. It was fucking miserable and I’m ashamed of myself.
It’s truly, truly, sad to know that I no longer feel like a whole person without my iPhone in my pocket. I went all of eight hours without a phone and it honestly felt like an eternity.
I sat at a Verizon store (which, by the way, is comparable to the seventh layer of hell) for a little more than an hour before getting set up with a new phone. I was actually due for an upgrade but I opted for an iPhone 5 SE.
This is the bottom of the barrel for iPhones and I chose this one purposefully. It doesn’t have any of the new bells and whistles. And while yes, I can still get on Twitter and Instagram, the screen seems so small compared to my 6 Plus that I’m sincerely hoping I’ll be less attached to it than I would be had I opted for the latest and greatest piece of technology.
Plus, I’ve got a feeling this will be a good conversation starter with women in the near future. You take one look at this phone I have right now and you’re transported back to 2011. That is hundo p an #in with girls. I can almost guarantee it.
I’m absolutely going to get called a peasant by a lot of my friends because this phone looks so goddamn old but I don’t give a shit.
I was at my most vulnerable last night without the bright glow of a phone screen to keep me warm. I’m embarrassed to be completely frank with you, but it was liberating at the same time. I actually concentrated on the Netflix original movie I was watching last night and it was crazy to think about how many subtle nuances I miss in television and movies because I’m constantly on my phone.
I just wish we could go back to the days of the flip phone when everything was less complicated and the most pressing issue facing us was a text message we’d have to send using T9 word.
We’ve become too attached to these phones. Tonight, when you all decide to dive into a brand new, crispy twelve pack of Michelob Ultra, maybe leave the phone in your pocket for the night.
Try it out, see how it feels. I think you might find that there’s a certain freedom that comes along with leaving your phone on silent and inside of your khakis for the night. .
Image via Unsplash
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jduda@grandex.co
Did they not have an iPhone 4S available?
I think you’d lose your mind if you had the phone I’m currently typing this on.
If you weren’t a peasant and had upgraded to the water (and presumably urine?) resistant iPhone 7, all of this could have been avoided…
Not gonna lie, “That is hundo p an #in with girls” took me awhile to comprehend.
I understood what it meant, but I can almost guarantee that it won’t be a #in. An iPhone 5 has the same rank as an android. Might be a talking point but won’t win ya any points.
Still no clue what that means
When I googled “hundo p,” this is the first link: https://www.inc.com/john-brandon/15-words-and-phrases-millennials-use-but-no-one-else-understands.html
I think it’s a good thing that we don’t know what it means.
Flip phones are phenomenal, but prepare to be judged hard by 99% of the people you interact with if you have one. Out of those 99%, 98% will assume you are a degenerate/drug dealer while the other 2% will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are just a degenerate.
I have been rocking a 5s with the screen cracked (more life) for almost a year after my old 6 got destroyed by the humidity in Cancun last summer. I can confirm it does not help me in any way pick up chicks.
Side note: Try going off the grid (OTG) with your buddies when you go out. Put all phones in a basket wherever you pregame and leave them there until the next day. Absolute mayhem ensues, and everyone has a better night in the end.
I did the same exact thing. Except I was hammered and in the Mother’s bathroom. RIP
Mothers will do that shit to you. Assuming you’re talking about the bar called Mothers in Chicago
Nobody has gotten domed in a pair of khakis since 1996
“Nobody’s gotten a handjob in cargo shorts since ‘Nam”
Cracked my screen last weekend while blacked out, now debating whether to fix it or wait for pixel 2 to come out.
One time I was 2 stalls away when a friend had a similar experience with an auto flush toilet. Can’t begin to describe how much I enjoyed his misery when he had to tell his dad he flushed his phone down the toilet.
I pegged you for a bathroom epiphany guy, Duda
Fuck khakis, jeans or a suit