Posted on 04/05/2005 12:28:07 PM PDT by billorites
Lexi Phillips answered the call of nature and soon heard an alarming splash: Her cell phone toppled into the toilet.
Lexi Phillips has dropped two cell phones into the toilet but keeps her minutes to fewer than 30 per day.
It wasn't the first time the 19-year-old had lost her Motorola to the Kohler.
"Both times, my cell phone was in my back pocket. . . . It fell out and went right into the bowl," said Phillips, a cosmetology student who lives in Milwaukee.
Mobile phones are the most popular personal technology around, but the ability to take them anywhere - including the occasional trip to the bathroom - carries risks. Plumbers, building managers, cell phone insurers and repeat offenders, such as Phillips say such phone fates are more common than many people realize.
Those most vulnerable are people who seem forever tethered to their phones - active young adults and mobile professionals.
On two occasions, several months apart, Phillips' mobile phones were powered on when they plunged into the porcelain bowl in her west side home. She went after them both times. She tried drying them out - to no avail.
Yet a third phone has fallen victim to the perils of Phillips' bathroom, slipping off the edge of the sink into several inches of water.
Information in the drink In addition to the costs of replacing the phones and the inconvenience of being disconnected, Phillips discovered another hassle that comes when your phone takes a swim.
"I lost all these new phone numbers I had just put in," she said, noting that she had not bothered to write them down. "Also, there were some numbers of people who have moved away, so I can't contact them. I will have to wait until they call me."
Phillips isn't alone in her phone fiascos.
Tracy Robertson, an information technology manager in Chicago, saw his cell phone slip from its belt clip and drop into the toilet just as he was "buckling back up."
"It was one of those things, where it was the perfect timing and the perfect position," Robertson said. "It just went in, just as it was flushing, too."
He tried to catch it, "but I'm a butterfingers I guess. . . . It was one of those things that happened in the blink of an eye. It was 'whoosh,' and then it was gone. There was no chance to even grab it. It was probably as fast as that stupid toilet has ever flushed."
Little did he know he would be reunited with his phone a few days later.
"The toilet was working fine, but then it started backing up, eventually," Robertson said. "I had to remove the toilet from the floor in order to get it out."
The retrieval-and-repair project took about an hour - including "wife-over-the-shoulder time" - and when Robertson yanked it out, the waterlogged phone wouldn't turn on. He dried it out to see whether it was a lost cause because it was a company phone.
"But after pulling it out of there after a few days, well, I really wouldn't have wanted to use it anyway," he said.
Plumbers have seen it all Vince Ingrilli Jr. of Vince Ingrilli & Sons Plumbing Co. in Wauwatosa, said that his shop has pulled mobile phones out of toilets over the years, mostly in local restaurants and bars.
"It happens late at night," Ingrilli said. "We get the call in the morning. They don't always tell you what is down there.
"You might be in and out of there in a half-hour if you can pop it out from the top," said Ingrilli, whose family has been in business for about 50 years. "If you can't see it or it lodges in the throat of the bowl, you're going to need to replace the whole thing."
Ingrilli said that sometimes a stuck phone can be melted out by heating up a probe that plumbers use and snaking it down the drain.
"It's good for getting other things out, too," he said.
Neil Strother, a senior analyst with the research firm Instat MDR who specializes in mobile devices, said it's difficult to determine how many mobile phones meet their end in the drain.
Manufacturers don't offer many water-resistant devices, he said. Only a few handset makers, such as Motorola, offer "ruggedized" lines of mobile phones designed for emergency workers that can survive being dropped in water.
Strother estimated the truly water-tough phones - ones that could survive being dropped in a toilet - represent as little as 3% of the wireless handset market.
"Any little increase in cost for a basic phone, and there has to be a good reason for a manufacturer and wireless carrier to do that," he said. "Phones are so cheap now, it just makes more sense to offer them cheaper instead of ruggedized water-resistant."
Claims on the rise Some waterlogged cell phones can be revived if you remove the battery and then let them dry for several days, Strother said.
Michael Powers, vice president of product management at Asurion, the second-largest provider of wireless phones insurance in North America, said the number of claims last year had "gone up dramatically" compared with previous years, but declined to give specific numbers, citing competitive reasons.
About 175 million people own cell phones in the United States, compared with about 4.3 million in 1990, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Powers estimates that about 30 million U.S. cell phones are insured.
Powers said that last year about 20% of the claims coming in were because phones were damaged by some kind of liquid, including "being dropped in a lake, pool, and, yes, in toilets."
Another 20% were damaged by being dropped on terra firma, and the rest were stolen, he said. The number of claims are rising in part because of the popularity of camera phones, Powers said, noting that "as phones get smaller and more things get put in them, more things can go wrong."
Occasionally, a cell phone tumbling into a toilet leads to more than just replacement costs and inconvenience. In at least one drastic situation, emergency workers were called in.
In October 2003 in New York, a man traveling on a commuter train dropped his mobile phone into a toilet bowl, and then his hand and arm became stuck trying to rescue it. Railroad personnel could not free him, so they stopped the train and called police officers and firefighters.
It took 90 minutes using the "jaws of life" on the aluminum toilet to rescue him, according to Reuters reports from the time. The man suffered a minor injury to his arm as firefighters cut the toilet apart.
Learning a lesson Warren Francis, a traveling computer technology consultant who lives in Chicago, lost his Sony Ericsson T610 down a toilet last fall when he fumbled trying to answer a call while getting ready for work.
"I started to flush the toilet, and when I was flushing, I reached for my phone in my short pocket to answer it," he said. "I pulled the phone out, it tumbled in my hand and plop. It actually went down the pipes."
Francis, who spends much of his workday traveling and helping clients at their offices, said he had to replace the phone right away - although there was certain freedom of not having a cell phone for a few days.
"I used to keep my phone on me at all times," Francis said, "but I don't take it into the bathroom anymore."
Me neither. I don't do toilets.
Lexi Phillips has dropped two cell phones into the toilet but keeps her minutes to fewer than 30 per day.
I'm pretty sure it means you should never ask to borrow her phone.
"This is one thing that won't be happening to me. I don't do cell phones."
Ditto here.
Worst I've ever done was to drop mine into a bucket of solvents (xylene) when working on my car in the garage.
Do you remember the article in the paper a few years ago about the Kenyan? woman who dropped her cell into a deep outdoor toilet. Three men died trying to retrieve it for her or rescue the guys already down there. They were overcome by deadly fumes. After reading that one, this doesn't seem too bad.
I'm not sure I'm willing to pursue the experiment, given the trade-off. For you see, it's true blondes have more fun!
Hee hee hee...
Al Gore invented pockets on undershorts. Blame him.
I have never lost a cell phone this way. But my car keys were almost a goner once. I fished that baby out as it was starting to get swept away.
I said lots of bad words when it happened....and laughed later.
That wasn't butter...
Lexi sounds like the kind of blonde ditz I would like to meet.
I now buy the insurance.
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