Monday, July 16, 2007

Cell Phone, Resurrected

"It's alive!"

After my early morning birding with Nina, et. al. on Saturday, I went to the restroom to change from long pants and T-shirt to shorts and a tank. In the process, I dropped my cell phone into the toilet bowl. "SPLASH!" went the phone, and "RATS!" said I. I fished it out, wiped it off and took it apart to let the entire works air-dry. I didn't feel good about the whole situation. When I put it together and turned it back on, I got a series of odd messages:

"Access denied. Enter password." (I have never given this phone a password.)
"Insert Smart Chip" (aka, SIM card. It was inserted.)
"Smart Chip rejected." (How rude!)

Without much hope, I spent my lunch break going to the cell phone store, where I always:

Have to wait in a long line.
Have to deal with unhelpful customer "service"
Get told, "Buy a new, more expensive phone."
Leave unsatisfied.

Today there was:

No line.
Actual service.
A free replacement SIM card.
And, I left with a working phone, all my settings and phone numbers intact.
Also, I got a promise of a replacement phone if this doesn't fix the problem.

Is this because the former Cingular store is now ATT? I wonder.

(Oh, yeah - I didn't tell them I dropped it in water, so keep that a secret, OK?)

5 comments:

Mary said...

A day your dreaded turned out to be a wonderful surprise! Seems odd, though, to have such wonderful service from a "communications company". I'd take it (the great day) and call it A DAY!

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

I won't tell!

KGMom said...

Oh sneaky sneaky--but, hey, did they tell you in the manual NOT to drop it in the water? Well, no--they didn't. So how were you to know?

Susan Gets Native said...

Mum's the word.
I've dropped my keys in the toilet before, but not my phone.
How's the reception in there?

nina at Nature Remains. said...

Your secret's safe with me! You know, these companies now don't have monopolies--isn't it nice that they want your business so badly, they'll do right by you?!
Maybe the days of having to beg for mediocrity are leaving us?