by Christopher R.

pool water

This summer I went to Tennessee for a day, and I lost my phone. First of all, in Tennessee, there was this little pool that stretched out probable fifty feet. The pool was small, and it took the form of a little creek. The water flowed down a channel that went on probably fifty feet. I was playing in the pool at the beginning and I had walked a couple feet into the channel and went back. I was wearing shorts so the pockets were flimsy, and I had forgotten to take out my phone which at the time was an LG Rebel 3, so not water-proof like the new iPhones. Now this phone had pieces of glass missing from the screen, so the motherboard was exposed, so easily friable if dropped in liquid. And from behind me I heard a “plop” and a big weight taken out of my pocket. My heart started racing as I turned around. At the time, I had no screen protector or case, (Note: I did have a case, but if I had it on my phone was not able to charge.) Because of this, I did not use it very often. I turned around slowly, afraid of what I might see, and low and behold, my phone was face down, on the bottom of the pool… I picked it up, held the power button, and white bars appeared at the top of my screen. It came on and the screen has faint distortion and bars on it. I swiped the screen to unlock it. My pattern lock came up. I tried drawing the pattern. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing. Everytime I tried to unlock it, even a couple months later after it had dried out, I can only get to the pattern screen. It must have semi-fried the part of the motherboard that controls the touch receptors. I was devastated. I am quite a tech-savvy person, so life has been hard without a phone to be honest. I do not know how cavemen survived without them. Anyways, morale of the story is, pay more attention to your pockets when getting in the water. I still have this phone, and everytime I press the power button, the white bars appear. Please, learn from my past mistakes, and take out your phone, before getting even partially submerged in water.

Photo by Carlos on Unsplash

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