Lately it seems my life has been like a movie. But rather than this being a happy-she-does-it-all movie, it seems to be this movie:

Despite having only seen 15 minutes of this on accident and possibly on an airplane, I still feel confident this is no one’s ideal situation, even in parody form (Jennifer, I’m just going to go watch Alias reruns and channel that vibe instead). Also does this make pre-oscar Matthew McConaughey my spirit animal? Let’s worry about the implications of that later.

You see as of Friday I am on my third phone in the last year and a half. I wish I could say this was because I am constantly updating to the newest thing in technology, but actually it’s because lately I’ve been a little cursed. Or perhaps a more accurate way of summing up this situation is saying my luck has run out. Usually when I drop my phone this happens:

[Minus the bicycle collision of course]

But those carefree days are gone. It’s not hard to pinpoint the precise moment where my luck ran out. It was on the Salt Lake City Walmart escalator. It was on this escalator that my phone slipped from my grasp and preceded to bounce down stair by stair, me chasing after it only to find the screen broken and unresponsive. What followed was your typical customer service snafu. Rather than give you the rant, let me just give you the take aways. So, without further ado:

7 Things I Learned from Dropping my Phone Down an Escalator

1. Backups are your best friend. Although the screen wasn’t working I could still plug it in and do a backup before it completely went out on me. I think in theory my phone should back up to the cloud, but I never have enough space for that. EVER. But regardless, no pictures were lost in the replacement of this phone.

2. To get a phone you must call a phone. This is especially required if you don’t have a phone. Seriously, there is nothing like walking into your service provider and showing them your dilapidated phone ripped apart at the screen and having them hand you a business card with a 1 800 number. No offering to use their phone or offering of help of any kind really. Truly magical service. Then of course the cycle continues as you also need a phone to activate your phone.

3. I am not prepared to win the Price is Right. All that night the price for my repairs just kept going up and up. First, it was free. “Guess what, you are under warranty! This is zero dollars!”

Then, not so free. “Oh I’m sorry I didn’t look at the right place, it’ll be $129”

I come to pick up the phone. “Actually we couldn’t do that either. So you’ll just have to get a new one for 279.” Although to be fair they were the friendliest and most eager to help people I’ve dealt with in customer service in a really long time! I am just not winning the Showcase Showdown any time soon.

4. Do not break your phone during the holidays. My closest Apple store is located in the mall in downtown Salt Lake City [City Creek]. One night I found myself going to this store three times all while fighting holiday traffic and then holiday concert traffic. Hooray?

5. Technology Disconnect: Good for the soul, bad for the inbox. Apparently if it’s not convenient I will not check emails. This combined with a copious amount of retail subscriptions lists created an unhealthy surplus in my inbox. It was a little bit of a reality check that I needed to purge my subscription list and digitally detox my life.

6. Be prepared for the betrayal of your limited time warranty. If this had happened to me 2 weeks earlier it would have all been covered. As in free phone for me. *Sigh*

7. People you can call WITHOUT a speed dial = True Family. Which in my case is pretty much the people I share blood with [The only four phone numbers I have memorized are my Mom, my Dad, my Sister, and the Missouri City, TX Pizza Hut], so, not that groundbreaking of a definition. True friends, by the way, are the people who you notify via Facebook private message that you are without a phone. Everyone else, I was like eh, I’ll call them back when I get a new phone in 4 days, they’ll figure things out. This, I’m sure, is a very attractive and desirable quality.

But not all phone stories end in disaster. Even this one could have been much worse. I was able to use my phone insurance and get a slightly better price on a replacement. Then last week when my phone randomly decided to stop making and taking calls, an actual and rare thing where it could no longer detect the service provider [the Apple guy was real excited to see this exotic technical problem in the flesh], it was somehow all under warranty and the Apple store had a replacement for me immediately.

I hope this phone stays with me for a real long time. I promise I am normally quite loyal. I kept my first flip phone until it was connected by a mere wire. And I’ll always have a place in my heart for my full keyboard slide-y phone.

Currently: Having a renewed love for all things Psych!