Cell Phones and Ravioli

Thursday dinner time found me bustling around the kitchen, making ravioli for dinner. I was effectively multi-tasking, making sauce for the pasta, stirring the pot of boiling ravioli, getting the house organized for me to walk out the door to go to work. Science Girl phoned to update me on her estimated time of arrival. I tucked my cell phone in the crook of my neck, continuing to talk to her as I poured the ravioli into the colander. Just then, disaster! The phone slid into the colander and I couldn't react fast enough. The boiling water spilled on top of it. Pandemonium ensued as I fished the phone out, knocking most of the ravioli out of the colander and into the sink. The phone was hot, wet and dead.

I took the cover off and held it gently, the ravioli forgotten as I tenderly pushed buttons, trying to get a response. At work that night, several people told me encouraging stories of phones revived by sitting for 24 hours completely submerged in a bowl of uncooked rice. When I got home, I lovingly placed the phone in a bowl of rice, said a prayer and left it for the required time. Twenty four hours later, Secret Service and I checked, found that the phone would turn on but that the resolution was problematic, the screen too dark to read. Cradling the phone like a sick child, the boys and I proceeded to the phone store. When we got there, the salesperson examined the phone, listened to my tale, shook his head and said they couldn't save it.

Then, the details unfolded. I couldn't replace my phone with the exact same model, I'd need to get an upgraded model. They could however, transfer my contacts and photos to another phone. I panicked. I hadn't even thought about the photos. I had over 250 photos on the phone, photos that I had never "backed up" on to a computer or printed as a picture. Then I started to sweat. How much was this going to cost? I felt my knees buckle. I told the salesperson I'd need to think. Secret Service and I moved to the only bench in the store. I was stricken.

Secret offered a solution. A technology buff, he'd been salivating over the new cell phone model and he said he'd buy the new phone and I could take over his phone. We went to work out the details with the salesperson. My phone number could be transferred to Secrets' phone, his number could be placed on the new phone. It all was working out until little Sport came over to the counter to check in with us. Sport has been on an active campaign for a phone since he was 7. For years, he has watched peers open presents containing phones at birthday parties, watched classmates make calls, when was it going to be his turn? Now, he stood, incredulous, as his older brother upgraded to a spiffy new phone while he still had no phone.

The next day, the whole family returned to the phone store where Sport picked out a phone, getting his Chanukah gift early.

Final total - two new phones, two new covers (because of course the new phone isn't made to fit inside the old cover), two activation fees, two "skins" to protect the phone's screen, and $10 a month (for 24 months) to add Sport to our family plan.

That was one expensive bowl of ravioli.