Baptism of a Cell Phone in Dirty Water

January 5, 2008

It did not begin as a baptism. I mopped the kitchen floor before work and scurried around the house tidying up a few things before going to work. As I walked past the doorway, I noticed I had not plugged my cell phone into the charger the previous night. I felt it was best to let the cell phone charge while I worked a few more minutes.

Walking into the kitchen and admiring the shiny, clean floor, I saw that I had not emptied the dirty water in the bucket. “Oh my, I must take care of this now,” I remember thinking to myself. As I reached for the device to squeeze the excess water out of the mop, I saw and heard something drop in the dirty mop water. “What was that?” I wondered.

I guess you know what happened next because the mysterious item which dropped in the dirty water was my cell phone. I gasped and yanked the phone out of the water in a split second, gingerly placing it on a towel to dry. Finishing a few more things, I saw the phone die in front of my eyes; it was not a pretty sight.

Since I have been accustomed to carrying a cell phone, I began my search for a sturdy and durable replacement. The sales associate at the cell phone company recognized me when I walked in the door. I smiled sheepishly and admitted I needed help. As I explained the incident, the sales associate smiled and reassured me he had heard worse disaster stories about the demise of cell phones.

Today, I returned to the store because I had purchased too many cell phone accessories. My mom sat beside me as I recounted an abbreviated version of the “death of a cell phone” to the sales associate. I said to my mom, “It’s kind of like a baptism because all the old stuff is gone. I just wish I had remembered to record a list of my contacts on that phone.”

This is when I saw the smile develop on the face of the sales associate. She remarked, “That is quite an interesting and accurate analogy. I have not heard anyone else describe it quite the way you did.”

Thinking about what I had just said, I realized I had accidentally baptized my cell phone… in dirty water. All of the old information was gone. A real baptism is conducted in clean water and is symbolic of our sins being washed away, similar to a clean slate like my new cell phone.

I learned a valuable lesson from this unfortunate incident. Water and cell phones do not mix, and night owls need to remember that their brilliant ideas usually develop late at night instead of morning.

Angela Scott

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