phone

If you know about the rice trick then there is a good chance that you – or someone of your acquaintance – has done that which I was unfortunate/careless enough to do a couple of weeks back… to drop my mobile device into a liquid! In my case it was into a hot bath…

OK – I feel the need to explain how a Capricorn such as myself (and thus naturally cautious in all things) contrived to do something so careless/stupid. Well – towards the end of the week I find myself pretty tired these days. Thursdays are particularly hard work, starting as they do with a fairly tough exercise class, continuing with a quick shower (no time for lunch!) and a rush to the college at which I teach for two and a half hours of classes and lab supervision followed by an hour or so in my office and on occasion a meeting of some sort… and then on some Thursdays on to something else in the evening.

Come Fridays I am usually ready for some relaxation – but not until domestic chores, shopping and cooking prep are done (yes – poor me!). Anyway – there eventually comes a point at which I like to immerse myself gratefully into nice hot bath.

If The Girl is out and about – as on this occasion – I leave my mobile phone somewhere to hand in case she should call. And, of course, call she did. Unfortunately I was fast asleep in the bath at this point. Being wrenched abruptly from my hard-earned slumber by the ring tone I grabbed sleepily for the phone with wet hands, jabbed at the speakerphone button and watched horrified as the device slipped from my grasp like a bar of soap and tumbled into the tub.

Fortunately instinct cut in at this point and I whipped the phone out of the water and powered it down, before getting as much water off it as I could with materials to hand. Once out of the tub I naturally turned to that source of all knowledge(!) – the InterWebNet – and discovered the rice trick.

This is the one where one gets as much moisture out of the gadget as possible by dabbing at it and turning it this way and that, before burying it in a container filled with rice. There it must be left for 24 – 48 hours so that the rice can absorb any moisture that remains in the device. Then, if one is lucky, it can be powered up again to see what (if any) damage has been done.

Of course, it helps hugely if the device is similar to my Galaxy S7 – which is advertised as being ‘water resistant’.

The good news in this case – which I sure will delight one and all – is that my phone suffered no ill effects at all and continues providing the excellent service that it has done to this point.

Phew!!