cellphones and monsoons

so, I let my cell go dead the other day ... seems you have to charge them every few days or so or the battery goes kerflooey .. who knew?

So, anyway .. I let the thing go dead and figured it was a good time to charge it up, which I did for like 18 hours. I took a look at it and the little message said "charging complete" soooo I unplugged it and it wouldn't work! I tried plugging it in to see if it would work like that, but it didn't. I was already in a crappy mood and was slightly miffed by the fact that my phone wouldn't work. so, I called my provider 'cause I was at least bright enough to get the insurance thingy on it where they will replace faulty equipment, and was told that I'd have to drive 45 minutes to get it looked at ... which also was not making me dance with joy.

So, I ignored them and took it to the local office, determined that it was going to get fixed here without me having to drive all over west virginia to get it done.

We run out to make the 5 minute trip to the store, after the 45 minute ordeal of getting Pookie to get dressed and find her shoes and then we had to go to the post office across the street first .. but it is apparently monsoon season here and we had a torrential downpour that left the street looking like a river ... so, I did what any normal parent would do when we saw that it was pouring and Pookie started hollering about running back upstairs to get the umbrella .. I said ... oh we aren't gonna melt, lets stomp in puddles :)

So, we went dancing through the rain, stomping in the puddles and then we had to cross the street which, as I've mentioned, was more like a river. I grabbed Pookie's hand and amidst squeals of laughter we ran across the street through the rushing river until the munchkin stopped all of a sudden, nearly jerking my arm out of joint in the process, and shrieked "my shoe!!!" It had sucked her shoe right off her foot and we had to run down the street to catch it lol

So, we ran down the street, fished the shoe out of the water, got it back on her foot. Both of us were completely soaked to the bone by then. This was no ordinary rain .. it was like having a bucket of water dumped over your head over and over. So, anyway, we ran to the post office after the shoe incident, grabbed the mail, and ran back to the car across the street. The car windows were down, of course, but it didn't matter so much since we were both already soaked.
We made the 5 minute trip to the store and sauntered, wetly, into the building, dripping water everywhere. When it was finally our turn, after waiting for the girl behind the counter to explain the many wonders of cellular phones to a couple that was obviously about 40 years behind the times, I handed over my now soggy phone and explained the problem.

"I let the battery go dead, then charged it up for like 18 hours and when it was done charging, it wouldn't work. I don't know what's up with it"

The girl behind the counter took the phone, flipped it open and messed with it a minute then handed it back to me and ... lo and behold it was working!

I was dumbfounded (dumb being the operative word here).

"What did you do to it? I've been messing with the stupid thing for hours!" I said.

She, with a straight face (which was utterly amazing to me) said, "you see this little button .. you have to hold it down to turn the phone on."

*blinks* *crickets*

I'd never thought to turn the thing ON .. 'cause I never turned it OFF. Never stopped to think that when the battery went dead it would automatically shut off. So, I said the most intelligent thing I could think of.

"well ... DUH."