Saturday, February 7, 2009

Trip to Cozumel

"Who wants to go to Cozumel?"

"Ooo, me, dady me!"

"Well Alexi how do we get there?"
"Daddy, it is just over the woods .....

....and thru some tunnels."

"Then what do we do when we get there, Alexi?"
"Ummm, well we ....
....hum?

"Oh, I know....
"First, we PARTY, ......and eat lots of balloons.....

"Then Lizards.....
"not eat them, but hang with them, lots of big harry iguana lizards.....

"And monkeys....

"Lots of flying spider monkeys...

"oh yea, Temples.....
"Big, human sacrificial -altar temples.......

" Well, you know, ....the usual stuff Daddy!"

Twuz just before this trip that my second iphone came to demise. "Ugh, double fudge Ugh!" (with a few other non-printable explicative deleted). And it was the crescendo to a rocky and smelly vacation prelude.

You see, the day before we were set to get on the plane, I get a text from Christy. I got this text in the middle of a meeting. It was my turn to give lab meeting and I was up in front of the group. You see, I had spaced the lab meeting, so I was up there with very little preparation, and then I got my text message, but the reason I was poorly prepared, was because I was trying fiendishly to get the spiraling pile of papers read. I needed to get them read so that I could finish a paper I am determined to get out the door. And the reason I want to get this paper off to my co-authors, is I had this impending vacation. ......Ok, I am confused.....where was I?

Oh yea, text messages..... you see, I got this text message just after I stood up and was a few words into my "chalk talk." I normally don't answer the phone in meetings and certainly not when I am presenting, so I was just reaching down just to turn it off and the text message caught my eye:

"basement FLOODING, Ugh!"

Such information kind of throws off ones presentation timing. Left me a bit distracted. I mean, it was not dire emergency, because obviously Wiffy has things under control. No one drowning or she would not have taken the time to text me. ....but still, unnerving and distracting information. Never-the-less, since my presentation would only be a few minutes, I decided to press on and call Christy afterward.

I finished the presentation after a rocky start and made the call. Sewer backed up. Her "Ugh" is right! I got home and spent the rest of the evening cleaning the nasty mess. Christy had the "tough job" of keeping the kid away and entertained, lucky her. Luckily most of the basement is tile and only one area rug got wet and trampled by Roto-rooter guys. After multiple moppings and about 6 passes with a rug power-washer, the mess was in a manageable state for abandonment to dry.

Then Double Ugh hit.

I stripped down out of my nasty clothes and jumped into the shower. Drying off and into new clothes I went to go throw the nasties into the washer, but wiffy had beat me too it and got them in there already. I saw my wallet and key on the dresser, but no phone. With the hint of a Double-Ugh feeling sinking into my stomach, I stopped the washer, now in rinse cycle and found my recently purchased phone, now gleamingly clean and shinny.

Alas, it is dead. Kaput. Fini. el morto.

I am gonna be phsyced when they start designing phones capable of underwater submersion. I will be the first person to buy one.

..... or will I? I am sure there are countless others out there with similar phone-demise stories.

No comments: