I returned a reciprocal saw I borrowed from my father-in-law this morning. I had a couple of 2×4s to cut that were a part of of the bottom plate for a wall. A wall which I put a doorway in. Hence the need to remove the bottom plate.
I was supposed to take some gray thread to my mother-in-law when I returned the saw, but I forgot it. My wife called me as I was getting on the freeway, too late to turn around without almost doubling the length of the trip. So I got the saw back to John, and he mentioned that my wife was going to bring the thread over at lunchtime. You see, she forgot her phone at home, and called me from work. John mentioned he could use a pneumatic crown stapler—I happen to have one. I figured I’d join my wife at home for lunch today, pick it up, and they’d get everything around noon.
As I was getting in my car, my wife called me again, from her phone this time, to tell me she was picking up the thread (and her phone) now. I told her about the stapler, and she said she’d just gotten on the freeway and it was too late to turn around.
So, I drove back home, picked up the stapler, took it back to John, but when I arrived I couldn’t find him. I met the HVAC guy, who had come to fix some vents in the attic. We were both looking for John. I decided to call him on his cell phone, which he mentioned earlier that he had on his person. The phone rang and rang, then went to voicemail. About 10 minutes later he came up the stairs. He was in his “office” (aka the bathroom). When I called, he was just finishing up his business, and fumbled his phone.
You know what’s coming.
Yes, it fell in.
Now he has an old, battered phone. He’s had it for a good three years, and he’s hard on phones. If I had been in his place, instead of calculating the hygienically safest way to retrieve my phone I’d have been calculating the diameter of the drain pipe and whether or not I could just flush it and get a new one.
Alas, he dove for it and “washed it real good.” At which point it stopped working. It was still on, you see.
Presently it is still sitting on a desk drying out. I survived a lake plunge a year back or so, but only time will tell if it survives the toxic dousing it received today.
PS I got a follow-up phone call from that very cell phone. It still works.