When It Rains, It Flushes

Woe is Val Thevictorian. Her HTC washed out to sea. Almost.

We took a Sunday drive down to the Throwed Roll Restaurant. More on this excursion tomorrow. You drop in ever day, right? Just like it's court-ordered. Let the record show that our tour took nearly six hours. Twice as long as those ill-fated castaways. Oh, there was ill fate all right. Of course it was Hick's fault. You don't think Val would ever be the master of her own fate, do you?

The Pony drove us in his Nissan Rogue. He offered to let Hick drive on the way back, because Hick is not a good passenger. He's not a good driver, either, but that didn't seem to matter to The Pony, who preferred fiddling with his phone instead of paying attention to the road.

Val can take her phone or leave it. In fact, checked it only a couple of times the whole trip, leaving it in the cup holder except when taking pictures of her plate at the Throwed Roll Restaurant. When we got home, Val popped that phone into her pocket, carried in her purse, and made a pit stop. She was headed to town, you know, for her 44 oz Diet Coke.

As I got up from the throne, my tender buttocks, as sensitive as a princess's pea-feelin' back, sensed something amiss with the toilet seat. "Is this seat WET?" Let the record show that Hick had consumed roughly 3 x 34 ounces of Diet Coke at the Throwed Roll Restaurant. That's more that TWICE Val's daily imbibtion. He had planned to visit the rest stop on the way home, but the northbound side declared, NO FACILITIES. On he went, to the next town, and freeloaded the facilities of a Burger King. So it was no surprise that he was already in the house, facilitizing, while Val was putting her sunglasses back in garaged T-Hoe for her town trip. I was in no hurry, having restricted my lunchtime Diet Coke consumption to about 15 ounces. Because of the travel, you know.

I tore off three squares of toilet paper and turned to wipe the seat. After the fact. As I bent to swipe at Hick's carelessness, I heard a PLOP, and my shirt felt lighter. Uh huh. My cell phone, my six-year-old HTC Evo 4G, passed down to me by Genius after he'd had three new ones and mine went kaput, did a swan dive out of my pocket and into the toilet bowl. WTF? I have NEVER in my life dropped a phone into the toilet. Never had a phone get wet. Val's phone has always remained dryer than a Triscuit cracker on a sandpaper napkin at a Carrie Nation Day parade in 1930s Oklahoma.

I grabbed my phone, where it bobbed, just under the surface, not even reaching the bottom yet. I might have screamed. I ran from the bathroom through the bedroom past Hick in his La-Z-Boy, into the kitchen. "MY PHONE! I DROPPED MY PHONE IN THE TOILET!"

The Pony and Hick came running. Faster attention could not have come to me if I had given a STAT page in a Level I Trauma Center.

"Take out the battery!"

"Dry it off!"

"Here's a paper towel!"

"You need rice! Put it in rice!"

"I don't have any rice!"

"I've got the battery! You do the phone!"

"Take out your sim!"

"I don't have a sim!"

"Put it out on the porch in the sun! That'll steam out the water while you go get rice!"

The Pony unwrapped the battery. I unwrapped the phone. I put it out on the porch, and came back in to see The Pony throwing something in the wastebasket.

"I guess I won't be taking THAT ibuprofen. I touched it by accident after I handled your phone. It was laying on the cutting block. And now my hands are wet from washing them, and I can't reach down in the bottle for another one yet."

"Here. Use this paper towel. It's dry."

"Um. NO. I touched it to move it over before I washed my hands."

"It was just a little pee."

"Exactly!"

"In a whole toilet full of water. Not even enough to turn the water a color!"

Am I the only one who finds it amazing that the male of the species, who will reach down the back of his shorts and sniff his fingers to see if he farted or sharted, and/or wipe that finger under the nose of an unsuspecting fellow bro who's having a nap, and who will pick up his own turd and carry it to the locker of his nemesis and flatten it in his enemy's World History book...can get so squeamish about a tiny bit of high-diluted womanly urine? DISCLAIMER: I am NOT inferring that The Pony did these things, because he most certainly did not. But only that I survived 28 years of teaching at the secondary level, and have insider knowledge.

SIGH..."Well, if you've ruined your phone, I guess we'll need to get you another one." Said the man who has twice killed his phones by wearing them on his belt in the rain, and once by knocking it off the holster on his belt and into the toilet.

Here's the patient.

Resting comfortably, sunning himself (sans back and battery after the photo) on the back porch rail, while I was in town buying Gulf Pacific Heart Healthy Low Fat Premium Whole Grain Brown Rice to place in a mini coffin for him. Let the record show that I am not so much concerned about my phone's health as I am about paying the least amount for rice that will probably be ineffective anyway.

Genius is on the case, shopping me a new phone. He said the Samsung Galaxy S7, offered to me by Sprint as an upgrade at a bargain price several days ago, was TOO MUCH PHONE FOR ME. Thank goodness I haven't seen those adds for the toilet-shaped Jitterbug flip phone in a while.

While I was in town, the sky clouded over. "Oh!" I thought. "I need to call Hick and The Pony, and tell them to bring my phone......in...from the porch..."

Yeah. Old habits die hard. Old phones die harder.