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?)