So-o-o-o Crunched

It started with what is a fairly routine request in this household: "Will you call my phone?" One or the other of us will occasionally have left their cell phone in a non-obvious place. Since they are black, and easily hide, and since we frequently have mobility issues, when one can't be found, its ringing will point us at least to the right room for the search. Once there, we can hone in quickly on its location.

That's how it usually goes. Today when I called Steve's phone, it went straight to voicemail. Not helpful. A few questions produced ambiguous clues. Was it off while sitting on the charger? Unknown. Had it run out of battery and not been charged? Where was it last used and what had happened since then? All of these are the usual questions and of course the usual starting questions that already had led nowhere, but we're either optimistic or pessimistic enough to hope going through them now might produce results.

Nada.

He'd had one of his late nights with little sleep, so his lift chair was the obvious place to start the search together. Not between the cushion and arms or back, as far as we could reach. It often ends up there when Steve wears something without a belt. The very secure case for his phone is then substituted for pockets, which we've found on numerous occasions do not adequately secure a phone. Hey, women's pockets are even worse! I've often gotten up from sitting and the phone hasn't joined me.

After hunting from the top, we hunted from the bottom of his chair. Nothing on the floor, nothing showing hanging lower than we could reach from the top. It really helps to tilt the chair forward for a good inspection, since everything is black, shadowed, and otherwise unreachable. While it was thus tilted, we used the electric control to move the chair in case something might fall out.  Still nothing.

We set the chair back in its usable position for a round of head scratching. And because it had worked so well before, we again tilted the chair forward and searched under it a second time. The chair had moved relative to its location on the rug, and suddenly there was a black cell-phone shape on the rug.

Ahah!

Uhhh, not so fast with the celebration, folks. It turned out to be just the plastic backing of the phone. At least we now knew where to concentrate our hunt. Still seeing nothing, however, despite poking and prodding in hopes of moving the rest of the phone into a visible position, we decided a rest was in order. The chair was set up again, and Steve, now both frustrated and worn out, stretched it back into recliner position. As it moved, I listened for any odd sounds that might indicate it dropping the phone from its hiding spot.

What I heard instead was the crackling of breaking glass. It repeated as the chair rose to sitting position.

We'd already come to expect it was broken when we'd found the phone's back. It wasn't just that it had been removed from the phone, but its condition as well. Now I still make a point of bragging that my cheap little flip phone had gotten crunched in that chair, with dents to show for it, but still worked perfectly. I tried to cheer Steve up with that possibility for his phone. Neither of us actually believed it in this case. But Steve had hopes we could retrieve the phone in good enough condition that he could remove the SIM card, place it in the spare phone in his room, and again have a working phone with his data in it.

When we were ready to work some more, over we tilted it and continued looking and feeling around the bottom/side of the chair. It's possible that in crunching the front of the phone, it had also been shifted slightly. Steve found it almost immediately. Unfortunately it had become wedged between two steel bars which normally have no distance between them. They were therefore gripping this thing so tightly we couldn't budge it.

I went for a pliers. Woefully inadequate. Steve fetched a hammer and flat blade screwdriver. A little pounding made for about 1/16inch of motion. We had to try to push it upwards in terms of the chair's usual position, both because it had fallen down into that spot, and below that those two bars was the bolt which held them together. About 8 whacks finally produced movement, and another 5 minutes of work finally freed the (remains of) the phone.

Whatever glass they use to make those screens, as much abuse as this one had endured, no splinters came loose. Our fingers were safe. So, once Steve worked on his phone, was its SIM card intact. The rest was trashed, and the spare phone placed on the charger for the first time in nearly a year. While waiting for it to show signs of life, there was much cleanup to do.

It was a good thing that we hadn't decided to sit around first. I saw a funny looking black thing on the floor, hiding in the area right where the chair leg reached the floor. Picking it up, I held a plastic coated thin rectangle, once flat but now both highly bent and of uneven thickness. My suspicion was verified by the words "lithium battery" among a host of other small white letters. Since I was already holding it, I could feel there were no hot spots. Still, enough of them have made the news that I immediately took it outside and dropped it in the garbage can, both metal and underground. If something had to burn, it wouldn't be the house.

Latest status is the spare phone is charged, the SIM card in place, and the screen informs Steve he has to call his phone company tomorrow to switch his service over to it.

Not the worst outcome.