My Phone Doesn’t Like Uncle Ben’s

Rachel Hawkins - 12 Apr 16

I dropped my phone in the bath last night.  It felt like it happened in slow motion.  I was led in my new tub about to have a lovely long soak after my toddler had got out and just thought I’d have a read of my recently purchased Heat magazine, when all of a sudden there was a loud thud.
I screamed, a proper scream like something horrific had just happened (well, let’s face it, it had!).
Wes came running in to find me scrambling amongst the suds to retrieve my iPhone 5.  It must’ve been mere seconds but felt like an eternity when I fished the thing out to find it was still working.  A huge sigh of relief left my mouth while Wes was berating me for screaming like a teenage girl at a One Direction concert.  I’d had a lucky escape I thought.  My luck for 2015 (my annus horriblus) was changing and the second half of the year was my 6 months, the Phone Gods were shining down on me tonight.
Feeling smug, I led back in the bath and got on with my soak and my scrub, Tuesday night is Tan Removal night, the bath water is the dirtiest thing you would ever see, aside from that porn film Jordan & Dane Bowers did c.2000.
Half an hour or so later I depart the bathroom, with my rescued phone in hand, clutching it like a winning lottery ticket.  I had a scroll through to make sure everything was working and congratulated myself on my lucky escape (I even had an ill advised Facebook status informing my friends of just how lucky I’d been).

OH HOW WRONG WAS I!!!

I plugged my phone in to charge as it was on 8% (a regular occurrence for me, bring back the Nokia 3310 when a phone used to last a week) and set about getting on with my evening.  My phone died.  That was strange I thought, perhaps it’s the plug socket.  THE PLUG SOCKET MIND, this goes to show you how naïve I am, that plug socket worked just fine only hours before!  I’ll try upstairs I thought, the upstairs socket is bound to charge my nicely dry working phone.  45 minutes later, I notice my phone is still not turning on, it then dawns on me, perhaps my little bathing mishap has done some serious internal damage.  Anxiety seeps through my veins like the morning after the night before when I’ve got Beer Fear that I’ve pissed my mates off or danced stark naked down Kingswood High Street singing the National Anthem.  I try another charge, nope still as dead as a Dodo.  I know, I’ll stick it in the airing cupboard overnight, that’ll dry the bugger out.
It was a long old night (not least because my toddler decided he didn’t like sleeping in his own bed and wanted to lay spread eagled in our bed).
I think I got up to check it a couple of times in the night, hoping somehow it may have been miraculously revived.
I then recall someone had mentioned using rice to dry the handset out.  I know, I thought, I’ll stop off in the shop on the way to work and purchase some rice, it’s worth a try if nothing else.

OH HOW WRONG WAS I!!!

The following morning, phone still showing about as much life as a week old salad, I pop along to McColls praying they’ll stock some rice ,to find they do in fact sell my desired product and it’s an absolute bargain at £2.
I pay for my rice and practically skip to work feeling confident I’ll have a working phone by lunchtime.  I open the packet and struggle to get the phone in, this is strange I thought, I wonder if other people make such a mess when submerging their phone in rice, grains were coming out in chunks all over the place.
Finally, the phone is submerged and I set about starting my working day, safe in the knowledge I won’t have to make a trip to the Apple store for the 3rd time in as many months to get a new handset (yep, true story, I’ve broken 2 phones already this year, prior to this little fiasco).  An hour or so later during a meeting in the office my colleague walks into the office, I warn her of the phone in the rice just in case she finds it a little odd that there should be an opened packet of the stuff perched on my desk at 9:30am.  She takes one glance at it and doesn’t hesitate to inform me that what I happily purchased only 2 hours previous is actually COOKED RICE.  Yep,  that’s right my friends, I had bought cooked rice to try and rescue my phone.  A mortified look emerged on my face (probably with a few swear words knowing me, I can’t really remember as it all happened so fast).  I walk over to the packet, take my poor phone out to find it is more wet than it was to begin with, the bloody thing is soaked right through. It’s been sweating right out for the last 2 hours!! So now, not only am I totally phone less and £2 worse off but my self-esteem has well and truly left the building, it is long gone.  Every single person I have regaled with this story has laughed out LOUD at me, whilst simultaneously shaking their head and probably wishing they didn’t know me.  Even the guy in the O2 shop told me I’d made his day (whilst probably thinking what an absolute moron I am and fearing for my son’s academic future).  Well, I’m glad I made someone’s day cus I have had an absolute shocker of a Wednesday and am now £190 worse off as I’ve had to buy a new phone and if I ever have to look at a packet of Uncle Ben’s Long Grain rice then it’ll be a moment too soon.

I hope you’ve all had a better day than I have today and if you have learnt any lessons from my tale then my work here is done, but I’d bet my house on the fact you already knew not to put a phone in pre-cooked rice didn’t you? Course you did.

Rachel Hawkins

Almost 30 year old (eeeek) Mother to one from Bristol. Writing about whatever takes my fancy, mainly due to the fact 140 characters on Twitter and a Facebook status just isn't enough! Passionate about mental health awareness.

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