SOMETIMES, DODGY PHONE REPAIRERS ARE AWESOME

So, as some of you will be aware, I have done the simply clarsy thing, which is usually reserved for drunken slappers in a night club toilet (OMG: imaging the bacteria in a night club toilet?).

I dropped my mobile phone into the toilet.

Thankfully, before I had evacuated anything into said toilet.

Even then, I think I would have desperately grabbed for my precious, although now obsolete, iphone 4.

As I stood there watching the phone drop in slow motion, by the time I realised what had happened, my Hello Kitty screen saver was smiling up at me from beneath five inches of toilet water.  Great.

Being the germaphobic nutbag that I am, I had absolutely no hesitation diving in for it, simply because I knew there was hand sanitiser in my handbag in the other room, and because it was clean toilet water, if that makes sense.

Maybe I’m not a germaphobe after all?

Yeah right.

Anyway, I stood there in the bathroom, having a mild panic attack, desperately shaking the water out of it, and repeating ‘please don’t die… please don’t die’.  If I had shock paddles there, I possibly would have used them.

I place my precious (my entire life!) on the vanity unit, and as I scrub my hands raw, I watch with rising horror as my LCD screen flickers and goes black.

OMG! I’ve drowned my phone! I’ve killed it! Murderer!!  Happy fucken New Year!!

I wander back out to the party, and tell my friends what happened.  I grab Charlie’s phone, and Captain Arsehole promptly says ‘Don’t touch my phone, you’ll kill it!’, and rang my phone.  After a few moments, which seemed like an eternity, it starts ringing.  I haven’t totally killed it!

So, I set it down on the table, say a little prayer, and continue on with the New Year’s Eve festivities. 

All night I hear this phone pinging with messages, but I cannot see or answer them.  It was torture.

The next day, I get heaps of suggestions about putting my baby into rice to draw out the moisture, but there are two things I know about an iphone.  One: they’re not built for water, and although it will work, my LCD display will be fucked.  Two: putting it into rice will do nothing; the screen will be fucked.  The end.

What upsets me even more, is that in a couple of days, I’ll be heading off to Canberra for a holiday, and I won’t be able to ‘check in’ anywhere to keep my Facebook peeps up to date with my adventures.  DEVO!

Yes, I need to get a life.

So after suffering through my entire Canberra trip without my phone (which kept receiving messages and calls that I couldn’t answer), I headed down to Footscray to get the phone repaired.

Now, having had an iphone for quite a few years now, I am experienced with iphone mishaps.

One thing you must always obtain if you have an iphone, is a cover for it.  Why? Well my friend, when you drop it on the concrete directly in front of your office door and it lands face down with a sickening splat, you learn pretty quickly that not only would a cover have saved it, but how these phones are set up.

There are two screens; the glass touch screen and the LCD screen.  When I dropped my last phone, I completely shattered the glass touch screen, and the LCD was fine.  Some seriously dodgy looking mobile phone place in Footscray that I found on the interwebs, took care of this for me.

I remember when I walked into this place for the first time, I thought ‘No fucken way am I leaving my phone here…’  I actually remember stopping in the doorway and hesitating.  The shop was as small as a toilet, with two white counters crammed in there.  The entire wall behind one counter was covered in parts and accessories, and there were hundreds and hundreds of boxes piled up underneath them. 

Two Asian guys sat behind the other counter in front of two computers, working madly on various mobile phones.  Behind them, were heaps of brown paper carry bags hanging up on hooks.

They looked at my phone and barked $150 to repair.  Sweet.  Best $150 I ever spent.

So, when my current precious decided to take a spontaneous and unapproved swim, I knew exactly where I needed to go.

Sadly, my favourite dodgy mobile phone repair shop was gone.  Progress had removed this establishment, and replaced it with some funky extension to the Footscray train station, in a desperate attempt to clean up and modernise the area.  What a waste of fucken time.  It’s Footscray, ffs.

So into Barkley Street I ventured.  I knew I would find a place along there, because when I drive that way home from work every other night, I can see heaps of dodgy looking places along there.  Bound to have a phone repair place, right?  Right.

I find a car park, and wander into the first phone shop I find.  Unfortunately, it’s a non-dodgy repair place, and the dude behind the counter informs me that if I go to an Apple store, they would possibly replace my phone for like $300 or $400.  Fuck that, I say. 

‘You could always try the dude across the road.  He can possibly have a look at it for you, but I think your phone may be done.’

So I venture across the road to an untidy looking shoe box with two Asian looking dudes behind the counter, and half of Somalia on my side of the counter, banging on about their various phones and laptops.  Phone and laptop shit is everywhere, and this place looks dodgy as.  Awesome.

My new mate Mark, the dodgy Asian, looks at my phone and pulls it apart quicker than I can take my knickers off.  ‘Your phone is water damage.’ He says.  Not ‘damaged’; ‘damage’.  I love broken English.

‘No shit, champ.’ I say.  ‘Can you fix it?’

‘I fix for you.  No problem.’

‘How much?’

‘$90 for new LCD.  $50 for clean motherboard and labour.’  I didn’t even know my phone had a motherboard, but what the fuck would I know?  I use the thing; I didn’t build it.  ‘About an hour.’

‘No problem, champ.  I’ll take my Mum for some lunch, and I’ll be back.’

So Iris, who came down to Footscray for the drive, and I stumbled into the fist restaurant we find, which of course, in Barkley Street, Footscray, is Asian, and have ourselves some yum cha for lunch.  Iris and I love us some yum cha.

An hour later, my mate Mark, from the dodgy looking shoebox in Footscray, has fixed my phone. 

My precious is back, baby!  Yeah!!

Fuck you honest phone retailer and your ‘go to Apple direct’ suggestion.  What a fucken stupid idea.

Sometimes, dodgy mobile repairers are awesome.

Peace out.