We pay every month on our family cell phone plan for the motherload of insurance plans for our phones, but the hard truth is we pay this for Sammi's phone, because we are going through these Droids like water. We just replaced her phone two months ago because it just up-and-DIED. Prior to that I'd been able to troubleshoot all kinds of crazy gremlins that popped up on her phone every other day -- texting stops working, sounds stop working, screen freezes -- but even I am helpless before up-and-DIED. So they send her a new phone, with all the threats and warnings about not sending back the dead one as soon as we get the new one else we shall be faced with a $500 bill. I boxed the dead thing up the same HOUR the new one arrived thanks to all of that.
And now, less than two months later, the screen has cracked, pixels are out in a different spot of the screen, and yesterday the SOUND stopped working. As in, she called me and when I picked up, there was silence on the other end. I hung up, called back, it was answered, and NOTHING.
Now, after doing this 5 times, hopping in the car, driving around to the place where I pick her up from school and finding no Sammi, it did cross my mind some kidnapper was having a sick twisted joke. But then, on about the 5th time I rang and got silent-answered, I realized that I could just barely make out the tiny-est sound on the other end. And it was Sam. And she wasn't screaming out her surroundings like she's learned to do upon any kidnapping scenario that might play out. (Thank you, Liam Neeson and Taken).
No, it was the very far off, almost indiscernible voice of my daughter saying something in her very irritated voice. I know this voice, even in the whispered silence of a cell phone that doesn't work, mainly because her irritated voice was learned at my knee.
She'd taken the alternate route, the one she hasn't taken since last semester, and wanted me to pick her up there. By the time I discovered this, she was turning the corner to our house, as I was driving up from the other direction, having circled the neighborhood five times, confounding the other kids walking home who must have seen me all five times, talking, then talking loudly, then screaming into a cell phone.
So.
Today the new phone arrived.
We are thinking of investing in some military grade you-can-drive-a-tank-over-this phone case, but honestly, I don't think it would matter. It can't withstand Sammi. There is no Sammi-grade protection on the planet.
I got the box from the front door, walked it to the stairs to the basement, and told Sam her phone was here.
I swear, she walked up the stairs, put her hands out, and the thing LEAPT down the stairs without provocation. I will bear witness: there must be an unseen technology demon hovering around her.
Thank God for insurance.
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