Around three years ago I joined the league of ordinary ladies and gentlemen of this century - the proud owners of a cell phone that is as the name suggests quite smart! Well, my phone is definitely smart but it has a not-at-all-smart owner whose maintenance and safeguarding of the device is quite close to pathetic.Really close! The difference is tiny, minuscule, imperceptible! Never mind!
I came back to my apartment one day after finishing a few errands. I stepped into the lift and pressed the floor number slightly readjusting the way I was carrying my baby girl. A friend who was supposed to come over pinged me asking for my floor and unit number. I stepped out of the lift face focusing on the cellphone screen as I proceeded to whatsapp her the details.
Flash! I dont know what happened. My daughter who was getting a little hungry snatched the phone? Or I tried to prevent her from pulling it and it flipped out of my hands? Or did I trip over a wheel of the stroller and let go of the phone? Oh yes! I dont know! The cell phone flew out of my hand and fell on the floor of the lift, and, as I stared in horror,into the gap between the lift and its door. Down! Down! All the way to the ground floor. It travelled more than four levels to be precise!
For a quite perceptible time interval I stood there with my mouth wide open with shock and disbelief and the cursing-of-self part followed soon. I rushed to the ground floor. I borrowed a friends phone and dialled my number. One of Ilayaraja's BGMs started playing from somewhere. That was my ring tone! My phone! No doubt!
"You are alive!!" I was flabbergasted. The phone had fallen to the floor of the elevator that needed hands of expertise to access. The security personnel of my apartment informed me that they would check with the Lift company and get back to me.
Then came the biggest jolt! The company gave me two options. I could wait for two to three days. Whenever they came that way they would retrieve it for me. They could come immediately and do it but that would cost me $50 , no $49.50 .
I pictured my poor phone lying out there in the cold all by itself with its battery life ebbing away to zero. What if water splashed on it? What if it got bitten by rats? Above everything else , having to suffer the handicapped life without a cellphone was unimaginable. I decided to part with my fifty dollars.
In a couple of hours the cellphone was safely in my hands and would you believe it, Not a single scratch on the touch screen. That was one miraculous escape.
A few months later, the same phone was lying harmlessly on the sofa. I took it in my hands and a screen cracked beyond usable limit stared back at me as I let out a cry of horror. I still have no clue what exactly happened though the primary suspect is my now two year old girl, then around 18 months of age. Well, "If only I had stayed under that lift without making noise" I could almost hear my phone say that.
For a quite perceptible time interval I stood there with my mouth wide open with shock and disbelief and the cursing-of-self part followed soon. I rushed to the ground floor. I borrowed a friends phone and dialled my number. One of Ilayaraja's BGMs started playing from somewhere. That was my ring tone! My phone! No doubt!
"You are alive!!" I was flabbergasted. The phone had fallen to the floor of the elevator that needed hands of expertise to access. The security personnel of my apartment informed me that they would check with the Lift company and get back to me.
Then came the biggest jolt! The company gave me two options. I could wait for two to three days. Whenever they came that way they would retrieve it for me. They could come immediately and do it but that would cost me $50 , no $49.50 .
I pictured my poor phone lying out there in the cold all by itself with its battery life ebbing away to zero. What if water splashed on it? What if it got bitten by rats? Above everything else , having to suffer the handicapped life without a cellphone was unimaginable. I decided to part with my fifty dollars.
In a couple of hours the cellphone was safely in my hands and would you believe it, Not a single scratch on the touch screen. That was one miraculous escape.
A few months later, the same phone was lying harmlessly on the sofa. I took it in my hands and a screen cracked beyond usable limit stared back at me as I let out a cry of horror. I still have no clue what exactly happened though the primary suspect is my now two year old girl, then around 18 months of age. Well, "If only I had stayed under that lift without making noise" I could almost hear my phone say that.
