a public service announcement

meet ruby. she's chillaxing in her cozy bowl of rice, enjoying her vacation from being a functioning cellular device. little does she know, that bowl of rice is what's going to bring her back to the working world.

what does all that mean? if you ever drop your cellular tellular in water (or your rotten baby climbs up a chair, climbs on the table, swipes your phone, and baptizes it in your cup of tea) put it in rice for a couple of days to dry it out and resurrect it. ruby is actually just posed for this pic. you have to take the phone apart-open up the back and take the battery out- and then completely submerge it in uncooked rice for at least 24 hours, but maybe longer. i let ruby sit for a day, put her back together, and although she turned on, filling me with excitement, she quickly blanked out and stopped working. so back into the rice she went. i had honestly given up on her and pushed the bowl aside. but then, while i was waiting for some bread to bake, i decided to give her one last try. and low and behold-she works!! rice is your wet phone's friend. babies are not.

do not try to dry your wet phone with a blow dryer. scoff if you must but i am not the only one who has tried this. on a previous phone that was dropped in the lou, (no alcohol was involved. just a poorly placed phone in a loose sweatshirt pocket.) i tried the blow dryer, i think mostly because i was already in the bathroom and i was a bit panicked amidst a very busy day. the blow dryer totally fried the phone.

so if your phone gets really wet, think rice, not blow dryer. or just keep your phone out of the bathroom and out of the reach of rotten (but hopelessly cute) babies.

another helpful tip: if you get a new phone but have kept the same carrier and your old phone still works, store it in a place you can remember WITH it's charger. i was totally bummed because although i kept my boring, old, featureless phone for just such an instance, i could not remember for the life of me what i had done with the charger. i went to get the phone out, hoping it had at least a bit of charge left, and was elated to see the charger wrapped around it. kudos to you past mary for looking out for future mary. she loves you and thanks you.

**i would like to clarify that until i wrote this post, my phone did not have a name. i just thought the story was more amusing that way. i'm not completely crazy. or maybe i am.