Oh, Mercy Me!!

"Oh, Mercy Me!" How many times did I hear my sweet grandmother say that? I have no idea -- many, many, many because it was one of her favorite expressions. I'm not quite sure what it meant. Perhaps it meant, "Oh, mercy, what hath me done?" Or perhaps it meant, "Oh, Lord, have mercy on me!"

Whichever, it's a phrase that came to mind in my frantic efforts to undo an "oops" this afternoon. My cell phone accidentally ended up in water. It ended up in water because . . . big surprise!! . . . I dropped it there! I'd heard from my son, who once dropped his into a pool or a hot tub, that it isn't a good way to clean your cell phone. Now I could experience first-hand just what he meant, although it's an experience I would rather have skipped.

I snatched the phone out of the water, grabbed a paper towel, and began frantically to dry that little thing off. But there are nooks and crannies in cell phones, not to mention ports for chargers and head phones, and a battery that keeps it all running.

I ran downstairs, phone clutched in my hand, flew into our bathroom, threw open the cupboard door, and grabbed my blow dryer. Opening all the little things that open, I worked frantically to blow air into each space in hopes of preventing the death of my beloved cell phone. That little device is my memory. It holds information about how to reach people important in my life, information that I'm not sure I have stored anywhere else. (OK, that isn't my smartest move, and it's an oversight that definitely should be checked out and corrected!)

Tugging and struggling, I tried to get to the battery, to no avail. Surely that cover is supposed to slide off, right? I became stubborn and persistent. (It is not appropriate to say, "She's always stubborn . . . ") I WAS going to get to that battery, and eventually I succeeded. Blow, blow, blow went the dryer, after I'd taken out the battery and dryed it with a towel, in hopes of removing every bit of moisture in the battery compartment, and anywhere else on that small but powerful device known as a cell phone.

Praying fervently, I tried to use the phone in hopes that I had not caused its demise. It did weird things -- changing from one mode to another without my asking it to. YIKES! Would it ever work again?

Eventually, I called Neil, who is spending today as he did yesterday at the hospital with his mother. Comic relief is good, right? I told him what I'd done, and he said, "Wait a minute. . . I need to stop laughing!"

Maybe now is a good time to finish my confession. I dropped my cell phone not only into water, but into "eau de toilette" -- commonly known as the commode. Oh, yes, I did! Can you believe it? And my husband, instead of his usual unflappable demeanor, is laughing! Go figure! What happened to his love and compassion? His calm in the midst of storm?

I tried to send a text message to my children, to see if that feature would work, but one column of buttons (the three middle ones) would not allow letters to be typed. That was surely not a good sign! Going back downstairs, I used the blow dryer yet again, in case I'd missed a small vestige of moisture, then I put the cell phone down to let it rest. After all, being "baptized" must be a relatively traumatic event, especially baptism in the rather unusual baptistry that I used!!

Eventually, I gathered my courage and tried yet again, texting my children to confess that my phone had been momentarily dipped, and asking for a reply to see if the text option still worked. You can imagine my relief when a response quickly came back!

Whether everything still works on my cell phone remains to be seen, but now that it's been especially "blessed by baptism", perhaps it will work better than ever!!

Oh, mercy me, you can stop laughing any time!!