Cell Phones On The Water

Death of a Cell Phone

I couldn't fall asleep last night and found myself staring at MTV watching the Viva La Bam show. This show depicts young men who love skating, partying and dragging "Bam's" Mom, Pop and Uncle throughout the country seeking out thrills and wreaking mayhem wherever they end up at. It was mildly interesting for me to watch how moronic these kids were and obviously how rich they were becoming by laying it all down on video (maybe even MTV's photo crew). I mean c'mon, they got a Police escort through hours of traffic (on the shoulder of the road) and directly to their hotel overlooking the main festivities of Mardi Gras!

The part that really caught my attention was a clip of "Bam" and his crew rowing down a river in hope to reach some far away destination. Craziness ensues constantly and in one argument between members of his entourage one of them gets mad and threw his cell phone and hit a buddy with it in another boat. Of course it bounced off and into the water as they scrambled to grab, snag and otherwise pull it out as it sunk immediately out of sight. As if it would have ever worked again!

They have the money to toss a cell phone into the drink, or it may have been a prop for all I could tell but it made me recall that they should have had it in a waterproof cell phone case. Not only would it have protected the cell phone from damage, it would have bobbed up to the surface where they could have easily plucked it out of the water. I recommended one to a pal who took it white water rafting and dropped it overboard. He told me he cursed and counted it as another casualty of river rafting. They fought through the white water and some miles down the river were looking at the river bank in search of a good spot to set up camp, when he noticed the little cell phone case snagged in the fragile limbs of a branch that was hanging over and into the edge of the water. He was thrilled and quickly paddled over and picked up his cell phone, and turned it on, only to find that it was completely charged and ready to make or take a phone call. In fact he was so excited about it that he wrote to me as soon as he got home to let me know the story and how cool it was etc....

If you're going to be on and maybe "in" the water - protect those precious phone numbers and of course your phone - which might be a life saving piece of gear in a pinch, by putting it into a 100 % sealed waterproof/dustproof cell phone case. They are awfully cheap insurance against drowning your phone!