Wet Phone Disease

Journal

After a fiasco involving a hot tub and a cell phone, a silver lining emerges for the author

SPAMMING FRIENDS is not cool. Nonetheless, here’s a copy of the mass e-mail I recently blasted to the contacts list in my computer:

Friends, Contacts, Obscure Acquaintances:

I sat down in the bubbly Jacuzzi after a hard day pushing letters on a work keyboard. The warm water was soothing—until I felt the bump, and realized I’d drowned my cell phone. I’d done this once before, and the phone dried out and I got my phone numbers back. Not this time.

So due to a techno blunder (not to mention failing to back up my numbers), I’ll use this e-mail to say hello—“ Hello”—and ask that if you care to hear from me someday, drop me an e-mail with your phone number. If you’ve grown tired of me, no problem, just smile and give thumbs up to the next Jacuzzi you pass. But if you haven’t heard from me in a while, and happen to owe me money, I will waive all debts if you drop a line as to how you’re doing.

Best,
Ron Donoho

Funny, huh? A couple of respondents thought so. I sent that e-mail on June 15, at 9:34 in the morning. By the end of the day, more than two dozen replies had arrived (including one from George from Baltimore, who signed his message “Your Obscure Acquaintance”). After 10 days, when “Wet Phone Disease” e-mails stopped appearing in my inbox, I’d received more than 60 responses.

Seems I’m not the only one who’s drowned his phone. David from Rolando dropped his old cell in a cappuccino. He was able to revive his after a couple of days of drying. “It was never quite the same after that,” he writes. “Smelled good, though.”

Brooke, a former San Diego Magazine intern, splashed her phone into pedicure water while prepping for a fancy birthday bash. Nancy, a freelance travel writer from Orange County, exotically drowned her cell “in the Sea of Cortéz after jumping off a boat at Lovers Beach near El Arco in Cabo.” Dr. Pete, who works in downtown San Diego, wrote to say his wife recently washed his phone. However, he notes, as did several others, you can pay your service provider a small fee to keep a database of your phone numbers. I’m on that boat——now.

The responses, in total, were overwhelming——but in a pleasant manner, the same way a kid might feel on Christmas morning when there seem to be way too many presents to unwrap.

“I won’t let a Jacuzzi come between our friendship,” writes Joe, my best friend from Baltimore childhood days. Joe also is quite sure he doesn’t owe me money. So is Rachel, a local freelance writer who just turned to the PR lifestyle. Patti doesn’t owe me money, either——so she maintains——but it’d be difficult to collect anyway, since she just moved to Michigan. Myrna is still in San Diego and also happy to hear any unremembered debt is forgiven. She’s one of three wives who respond with their own numbers and their husbands’.

Several return e-mailers crack me up. “Well——now we can literally say . . . Ron’s all wet!” writes Jane, a San Diego TV personality.

Richard, a writer from Los Angeles: “I’m glad you didn’t get your fanny sizzled with an electronic buzz.”

San Diego society maven Jeanne wonders, “Are you planning to hold services before the burial of the phone? I’d like to attend to pay my last respects.”

“You should check out the latest Apple phone,” opines Mark, a former baseball teammate. He recommends purchasing the “iJacuzzi”——an apocryphal model he claims is waterproof.

I DO BUY A NEW PHONE. I purchase the LG 8700. It’s shiny and sleek——and will not be allowed to go swimming. (Not even 40 minutes after eating.) Buying the phone was the typical hassle. Call and wait 17 minutes on hold for a live person. Convince the Verizon representative to waive a month so I can get a free phone for renewing my contract. Go to stores in Hillcrest and Mission Valley that won’t honor the Verizon rep’s offer. Call back. Implore. Go to a Horton Plaza Verizon outlet and finally walk out with the shiny LG phone.

Such are the day-to-day, time-sucking endeavors that keep you from keeping up with your friends’ good news. News such as the word I got from Darren and Rosemary and sons Will and Tom——that the family has moved back to Carlsbad after a chilly two-year stint in Minneapolis. And from Suzanne, a news anchor in L.A., who is now the mother of a 2- year-old. And hey, way to go, L.A. Amy——she’s a working actress and finally met a great guy with whom she’s also working on getting in the family way.

Do you see the irony? Buying a cell phone—— or dealing with service providers and/or any institution that employs automated phone systems (corporate nose-thumbing, if you ask me)——eats away hours better spent hearing from folks like Jeff. He’s a San Diego dentist whose e-mail enlightens me about a midweek baseball league I might want to join. Or Sunje, who once graced the cover of San Diego Magazine (January 2001) and drops a line about her new focus on teaching yoga to kids.

I’ll admit to being lousy at returning phone calls. The worst part is not calling back close friends——because you know the conversation will last a half-hour, and you can’t seem to find an open 30 minutes between the meetings crammed on your calendar.

That’s where the silver lining to drowning my phone shines through. I find myself smiling while reading nearly every missive. Even the one from cranky Don, a magazine designer in New York: “You drowned my phone number? You suck! What a #&@!”

Less caustic was the note from Joel. A close friend from college and now a lawyer, Joel remains a crackup. He sends me references to insider jokes we shared 20 years ago. He reminds me of the days I wrote a column for our college paper. Once, I made reference to Joel waiting out the hours before the start of evening wrestling practice by leading a sedentary life sitting alone in an empty school cafeteria. I’d implored my readers to seek him out, pat him on the head and maybe give him their extra apple.

Whether or not you think that’s funny, I’m doubled over laughing about it. And I know when Joel finds out I’m still referencing that story in a published column, he’ll laugh and pretend to be as irked as he feigned to be 20 years ago. (Of course, now that he’s a lawyer, I hope he doesn’t decide to sue me.)

The nostalgia and the notes from long-lost friends never would have happened if I hadn’t taken my phone for a serendipitous dip. It happened by accident this time. In the future, I plan to catch Wet Phone Disease on a more regular basis. Even if I have to fake having a wet phone.

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to San Diego Magazine »