Jennifer L | Blue Wave Studio

For the digital native, multi-tasking is innate; they hardly ever concentrate their attention on just one thing. I’d say that I fall in between a digital native and a digital immigrant, growing up as the Internet became popular. I picked up the habit of multi-tasking. It’s a more efficient use of time.

This weekend, I had just returned home from a tennis match and decided to save time by calling a friend and washing my hands at the same time (tennis gets dirty). My cell phone held between my ear and shoulder rang and rang my friend while I rinsed my hands, only the thin Motorola Razr V3 couldn’t stay in position and fell into the sink buttons side up with the running water washing over it for a good two seconds or so. Before the call had a chance to go to voicemail, it had immediately shut off and I couldn’t turn it back on. My reaction? Nooooooooooo!

I immediately removed the battery (the battery compartment surprisingly didn’t have any moisture in it) and set it in the sunlight with the sliding door open so the breeze could help whatever water that had been trapped inside dry. I later took out the SIM card. I also emailed my friends to reach me at my GrandCentral number instead; if the phone worked again, GrandCentral would ring me there, too. (I later realized that it was also a good excuse to encoourage my friends to start using my GrandCentral number instead as they hadn’t before.)

I figured, if you can wash your keyboard in the dishwasher, there’s a good chance that my cell phone would still work. I learned about this easy keyboard cleaning method when I started working at my current job over four years ago; although I’ve never done it, I’ve heard another person from the office has cleaned a whole bunch of keyboards this way. Just make sure the heat isn’t turned on.

A few hours later, I put back the SIM card and the battery and lo and behold, my cell phone turned on again! I think the flat buttons sans gaps also helped. I had mixed feelings because I was sort of looking forward to a new phone, but I was glad that I didn’t waste a good working cell phone (pre-accident).

I have a feeling this was one of the manufacturer’s test cases: user drops cell phone in water. At least I didn’t drop it in the toilet.

Can the iPhone do that?

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