This actually happened to me recently, maybe it is a bit curmudgeonly or even "whiny" of me to note this, but I think it is a classic story of life in the big city. I am one of those people that only uses a cellphone (all you people who have home phones are Sooooo Far Behind!) and when there is a cellular issue I must notify my friends and family, so the following email went out to them today.
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 1:30 PM Subject: cellular fun I am going to make a short story long, because it is kinda entertaining: I depart from the all-night Starbucks Friday night, it is between 1:30 and 2:00. I have all my usual electronic gadgets with me. (Thinkpad, Camera, Pager, Iriver, Cellphone, etc.) It is slightly drizzling. So I pop out my portable umbrella and decide to take the bus instead of walking all the way home (about 2 miles). The bus stop has a nice shelter and is 2 blocks away.. No problem, right? I safely make it to the shelter, and find a homeless person there who asks me for a dollar. I don't give him anything. It is still drizzling, So I yield the shelter to him and make do with my umbrella outside of the shelter. Now those of you that have waited for a TRAIN in the city of Chicago know that if you want a south-bound red line, you will see every other possible train that uses that station before you see your train (in the case of a south-bound red, that is 5 other trains), and it could be a 20 minute wait. Well, the trains don't run at 1:30 AM at the Sedgewick stop, so I have to use the busses which are much worse than the trains. For this particular "Owl" route, the maximum time you are supposed to wait is 30 minutes. I don't think that I have ever waited less than 29 minutes for this bus. 29 minutes in the rain under an umbrella by the bus stop singing old Hollies tunes wouldn't be so bad, except that it started to pour. I mean to say, deluge. It looked like hurricanes do when you see the one lonely camera on TV just before the signal goes out from the Florida or Louisiana or eastern seaboard "Hurricam" on the weather channel. So I go over to share the shelter with it's occupant. The homeless man in the shelter, either through some sense of revenge for me not giving him a dollar, some desire to claim the bus stop shelter as his, or maybe just because there is a lot of water, decides that NOW would be a good time to stand on the bench in the bus shelter and to urinate on the sidewalk in front of the shelter. As he gleefully releases his stream I become numb with astonishment at the current events. Thankfully, He misses me. Now I have a decision to make...Do I want to share the shelter with this person, and possibly get splattered by his bodily fluids, or to step outside the shelter where the rain is now attacking from a sideways direction and take my chances? I choose to get wet outside of the shelter. This particluar shelter is next to a park, and there is no other visible shelter anywhere, no overhangs, no awnings, NOTHING! As the whirlwinds of water flow by (I can see them as they advance up Clark street), it becomes a game with me and the rain.. I am already pretty much soaked, but I am thinking... "protect the Thinkpad!" so I use my umbrella (which has become magically flexible and goes both ways (and this is south of Belmont:)) as a shield and try to guess which direction the rain will attack from next. Sometimes it's from above, sometimes it's from the south and sometimes it's from the north, and on rare occasions a car drives by and splatters it from the street in front of me. Thankfully, eventually, a bus does show up, I slog through 4 inches of water in the street, climb aboard and apologize to the driver about the fact that the interior of his bus will now be very wet, secretly hating him for taking so long to arrive. Everyone else on the bus is completely dry (why is this?). Riding the bus home, I see trees fallen on parked cars and in the road due to the wind. Walking home from the bus drop off point, I notice that the storm sewers are swollen with so much water that the heavy metal sewer lid in the street is being lifted about 6 inches off the ground as the storm-water spews an urban geyser from Chicago's san/storm sewer system. (Where are the deep tunnels when you need them?) I get home and start to unpack. My backpack has a relatively tight weave, so even though some wetness got inside, Most things are okay. There was a scary moment as I powered up my Thinkpad and it's screen was bright green (not supposed to happen). It was like it had lost the blue "gun" even though LCD's dont have guns. 8 hours later, after being powered on and sitting in front of a fan, the thinkpad is fine. (Whew.. That would not have been fun to explain to my boss at work). My pager works. (joy!) My Iriver works. My camera works. My text books soaked up a little bit of water and probably are not sellable, (but they are usable). The $0.50 bic pens in my backpack (why do I have pens? I never write; I type) have not run and all seem to work okay. But, my $250 moto cell: It lights up, the screen works, I can send and receive text messages, I can place calls, I can retrieve voicemail. But a curious thing is, no one on the other end can hear me when I talk. So this email is my way of notifying my friends that I won't be answering my phone until I receive a replacement. But I can listen to your voicemail. I have just ebay'ed myself a replacement. This is the 3rd time this has happened to me. 9-10 months into a contract, I kill the phone. Why can't I find a phone that survives my abuse for an entire year? (and therefore lasts as long as the contract). Anyway, expect me to not be available by phone for the next week until my replacement arrives. -jeffab