Missed Runs, Missed Trials

Being a frequent gate keeper (my favorite job), I often wonder why so many people have ABSENT scrawled by their names.  Why would they pay for a run then not show up?  It's so . . . . . uneconomical!

Well now I know.  I was paid up, the RV was all packed to leave out late Wednesday for Kiln (only 2 hours away), giving me plenty of time to set up and enjoy a bit of camping before Thursday's runs. Tuesday night, throwing in my last load of clothes, I decided to wash the house dress I was wearing, peeled it off me right then and threw it in the washer.  An hour later my husband emptied the washer for me, and I heard a big "UH OH!"  My iPhone was in the bottom of the basket!  It had been in my dress pocket and went through both wash and rinse cycles.  I had killed my phone!  I was dumbstruck.

Wednesday morning I called AT&T first thing.  If our 2 year contract was up for renewal I could get an identical 4S phone for .99 cents!  Otherwise a new phone is $549!!!!!    But they wouldn't talk to me about our contract because John's the only contact listed.  I had to wait til he got off work at 4 and meet me over there.  How dumb! Oh well, I could still leave Thursday morning.  The first dog on the line wasn't til NOON Thursday.  Plenty of time to get there by 10 and set up. 

We met up at AT&T at 4 Wednesday afternoon, and found out our contract has a year to go, so no cheap phone. They suggested we take mine across the street to iRepair, who took it apart and confirmed that it was fried.  Showed us the corrosion on the mother board.  But, they had a used one identical to mine for $200, so I bought it.  Of course it wouldn't have any of my contacts, apps or settings until I could sync it to my iTunes via my laptop, so we rushed home to do that so I could leave in time, or maybe just miss the first 2 runs.  The damn thing would not sync, nor would it connect to my Bluetooth speaker, and my computer kept serving me popups asking me to update, upgrade, etc., then iTunes wanted me to upgrade, then my anti-virus program announced it was restarting my computer. One delay after another.  I was beginning to get upset.  What good is a smart phone without your list of contact phone numbers and if I can't stream audio books and podcasts for entertainment at night?  I don't know anybody's phone numbers any more, except John's (how dumb is that), and I wasn't about to get on the road without my phone (can you believe we all used to drive around all the time, even cross country, without phones?????).  I struggled for 3 hours trying to make it sync.  The more I tried, the more tense I became until finally I was sobbing. That's when my back started to hurt! 

We agreed to take the "stupid phone" back to iRepair Thursday morning.  They erased the whole phone and uploaded the Apple programs like a brand new phone (which they should have done in the first place).  This took a few hours, and my back began hurting so bad I couldn't get out of the car! Brought the "new" phone home, it synced perfectly and was set up just like my old phone.  But I was in such pain, I thought I had kidney stones or lung cancer or something.   No way could I drive, much less set up camp or run my dogs.  I was contemplating going straight to the hospital. This debilitating pain lasted through Sunday.

After my phone got back to normal and a few days passed, my pain miraculously disappeared.  It was simply tension!  But the trial was over.

And that's one way to get an ABS scrawled by your name at the gate. :-)

Upward and onward!