The Premature Death of a Droid

I was at work on Monday, and picked up my phone to check emails.  I tapped the power button and nothing happened.  I hit it again, and it was deader than a Taco Bell chicken.  What the crap?

I played around with the thing and held down buttons, and removed, then replaced the battery.  It wouldn’t come back to life, no matter what.  And I started to worry.  Had my Droid, gulp, passed over?  It was still so young.

When I got home I visited two or three Android forums, to see if anyone had experienced something similar.  The screen was now glowing faintly, and the back was hot.  I kept taking out the battery, because I was becoming concerned.  And the moment I replaced it, the phone would start doing all its wacky stuff again.  I couldn’t find anything of value in the forums.

I’d just have to take it to the Verizon store the next morning.  There’s a new one a few blocks from our house, and I suspected the phone just required a quick fix of some sort.  What I believe are huge gadgetry issues, are generally no big deal. (Ha!)  So, I removed the battery and went to bed.

The next day I took the thing into the new store, and it was tiny.  Nothing like the big mondo Verizon near the mall.  I handed the guy my phone and started telling him my story.  He just grunted, and immediately removed the back panel from the ailing Droid.  The dude wasn’t listening to a word I was saying.

“This phone’s been wet,” he said.

“No it hasn’t,” I told him, instantly steamed.  “It’s never been wet, not ever.”

“I’m not calling you a liar, of course, but I think it’s been wet.”

“Well, you’re wrong,” I said, anger rising only minutes after I’d gotten out of bed.  He wasn’t calling me a liar (oh no), just claiming that everything out of my mouth was untrue.  Grrr…

Then he wanted to know my password, and I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about.  “Your Verizon password,” he said.

“I don’t know. Can’t you just look it up by my phone number?”

“No, I can’t do anything without your password.  I can’t aks for tech support, or anything,” he said, while handing my phone back to me and washing his hands of the whole thing.

Yes, it was quite a fruitful endeavor.

Before I left, some other poor schmuck walked in, and the Verizon guy was also demanding his password.  A confused “What?  What do you mean?” was the last thing I heard as I was passing through the front door.

While driving to the “real” store in the next town, I grew angrier and angrier about what had just happened.  I bet that guy accuses every customer of getting their phones wet.  That’s probably the standard answer, regardless of the question.  Because a wet phone will void a warranty faster than a post-Milwaukee’s Best assplosion.

If these other guys start going down the wetness route, I mumbled to myself, I’m body-rolling over the counter on ‘em.  Not literally, of course; I’m not Mel Gibson.  But I could feel a full-on Sunshine episode building.  And I hadn’t even had more than half a cup of coffee yet.  It was too much, too soon.

As I entered the mondo Verizon store, a man stormed past me, and yelled, “This is bullshit!  This place is nothing but bullshit!!”

Uh oh.

I put my name on the waiting list, and started playing around with the display phones.  And steeling myself for battle.  After about ten minutes, I heard someone say, “Jeff?”  And I followed the guy to the back of the store.

And he was great.  Very friendly, respectful, and not at all infuriating.  He took my phone to some inner sanctum, to check it out under a microscope, or whatever.  And when he returned, he said, “Yeah, it’s not the battery, like I’d hoped.  It’s the phone itself.  It crapped out for some reason. We can’t get it to boot-up, so we’ll have to replace it.”

All this without a password?

Unfortunately, they didn’t have any Droids in stock, so they’re mailing me one.  I’m supposed to have it on Thursday.  Under normal circumstances I would’ve complained about them being out of stock (again!), but I was just happy the word “wet” wasn’t introduced.

Indeed, the guy added, “Your phone is in good shape, it doesn’t look like it’s been abused or anything, and there’s no sign of moisture.  This just happens sometimes, with ALL smartphones.”

I went home, and found my old LG enV, and charged it up.  Then I called Verizon, and they temporarily activated it, so I won’t have to go phoneless until Thursday.

It sucks that my Droid died at such a young age, but I’m happy with the way Verizon handled it.  Well, how the second Verizon handled it, anyway…  That first guy can ram it deep and on a slant.

Have you ever had to go back to a previous cell phone?  It’s weird, man.  The thing is completely familiar, but also unfamiliar, if you know what I mean.  It’s disconcerting.  I’d forgotten, however, about the enV’s kick-ass texting keyboard.  That thing is nothing short of excellent.

So, there you go.  That’s why I didn’t update on Tuesday.  And I don’t really have a Question for you guys, either.  Maybe you can tell us about returning to something, or someplace, after an extended period.  A few years ago I was in Dunbar, and walked my old paper route.  And brother, that almost made my brain explode.

Thanks for reading this stuff, and I’ll see ya next time.

Have a great day!

Now playing in the bunker
Follow the Surf Report at Twitter!