Stupid Human Tricks, brought to you by Shannon.
I washed my (!@#)(!@*#* Motorola Razr *again*. (Yes, again. I’m a moron! I suspect if I had kids, I’d be washing jellybeans, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, Play-Doh, and God-only knows what else… sigh.)
I had it in the back pocket of my jean shorts last night as I watered the lawn. I came inside and changed since my jeans got water on ‘em.
Fast-forward to today when I mow the front and backyard lawns and get another pair of jeans filthy with grass clippings.
Throw all the jeans into the washer before hitting the shower.
After the shower, I consider sending Justin a text page at Oshkosh and realize… I have.no.idea. where my phone is.
Think briefly about calling it but realize quite quickly that it is nowhere it should be, which means it is probably on the spin cycle in the washing machine. I opt not to call it, remembering that I had a theory that calling it when it was in the washer was its death knell.
No, water is its death knell. This time it’s got like an aquarium look to it, including under the camera.
The THANK YOU to Mom is for persuading me to get the insurance plan, and footing half of the highway robbery retail replacement cost (sans insurance).
I just need to find the paperwork now…
I tell you what, lately if it weren’t for BAD LUCK, I wouldn’t have any luck at all… 
Addendum (2 PM CST):
I gave up looking for the paperwork. Proof I’m a geek — I have a low-res cellphone capture of
part of the bill for the “original” replacement Razr I got last September, but I can’t find the
actual paper receipt for the life of me. Nevermind the millions of Amazon.com, REI, BikeWorld, TimeWarner, CPS, Progressive, etc. bills and receipts I located, properly stored in their assorted file folders… Grrr….
So I went online to Cingular, only it’s been so long since I logged in that I promptly locked myself out with three bad password guesses (Is it my fault I trusted the password I’d written in my eWallet? 
) I groan as I read that either I have to wait 24 hours or I can call a three digit number from my cellular telephone. Yeah, the one I just washed… Thankfully, there’s a link to CHAT WITH A REP. And, for once, it worked — quick, easy, painless, helpful online chat — got my password reset and logged in.
After some bumbling around because one (you’ll have to figure out which like I did) of Cingular’s website search boxes is FUBAR’d, I found a search box that actually, you know, produces search results. I search for “insurance” since, thank God, I actually have insurance (because, even if I didn’t know I was stupid enough to do it AGAIN, Mom knew and convinced me to get the insurance coverage offered by Cingular.)
Result?
“QUESTION: How do I request a replacement phone if I have Wireless Phone Insurance?
ANSWER: To file a replacement request simply call 1-800-801-1101. Replacement equipment is shipped via standard overnight delivery in most cases. You are allowed a maximum of two insurance replacements in any consecutive 12 month period.”
– Cingular.com
I called the number and a very quick, easy, painless VRS (Voice Response System) guides me to a rep since I’m one of the unfortunate (though, it appears, not altogether rare) souls who has washed her snazzy, shiny, too-tiny cellphone. Rep gets my vitals and gets me set up to receive a replacement Motorola Razr v3 (Silver), battery and SIM card via mail in the next one to two business days. The only negative part of all this? There is apparently a $50 non-refundable deductible. I suspect this is to make idiots like me pay some further penance for our ill will towards cellphones. $50 is a darned sight cheaper than the three-hundred-freaking-ninety-nine dollars I had to pay last time (full retail, at the time; don’t even tell me how cheap they are now — they’re probably giving them away in Cracker Jacks boxes now!)
Anyway, kudos to Cingular for a relatively painless process for an otherwise very painful, annoying (especially when it’s your second time around) experience. Oh, and the rep’s got a terrific sense of humor and perfect delivery:
“Now, Shannon, remember… {Me: Yes?} This next one’s dry.clean.only! {Me: lol!}
To my Mom via email:
“I think I am going to have to start just leaving it in my purse. At least I’ve never washed or lost a PURSE before. I can only do this twice a year before they, I don’t know, send hit men out to retract my contract. (There’s something online about only 2 replacements per calendar year; I didn’t even make it one full year without rewashing a phone — we got the now-dead one in September ‘05).”
- Shannon
