Oh my aching cell phone...

So just before we left town... like 11:30 or so on Friday, Bean and I decided that we should get a snack. The cab was supposed to pick us up at 1:30, so we had some time, but we decided to go to McDonalds, thinking that it would be better to just get something quick and take it home rather than go to Denny's or IHOP or something. I swear to Bob that as we were pulling out of the driveway I thought, "I have a bad feeling about this..."
So we get to McDonalds without incident, and despite the fact that they were unbelievably slow we got home in plenty of time to eat and then finish packing before the cab got there.
As I pulled into the driveway my cell phone slid into an open cup of iced tea. Completely submerged. I don't know a lot about the inner workings of cell phones, but I do know that water = bad.
So I'm shaking it and cursing at it and trying to dry it off (and out)... and nothing. It won't even come on. I'm officially fucked.

Then I remember that we never got rid of Bartleby's phone... so I find it and call Verizon. While I'm on hold (20 fucking minutes, by the way) I drive to the station so that I can print out my last bill - hoping to salvage some phone numbers. With one or two exceptions, I have no idea how to get in touch with any of you without my cell phone. Seriously. The Fabulous Michelle's phone number? Michelle. My sister's phone number? Abby. (Seriously... please call me and leave an identifying message or text me your name or something so that I can rebuild my phone book!! And if you happen to know the Twitter number send me that too... I HATED being on the bus with no way to Twitter about the other people on it).

So at this point it's 1 am, I am actually feeling pretty good about this solution because I am MUCH rougher on my phones than he was (partly because he never did anything and he never called anyone, and partly because I am an accident in motion most of the time) so his phone was in really good shape. But it was also full of photos and old (old, old, old) text messages and that sort of sucked... I basically just deleted everything.

OK, so it's almost 1:30 and we are packed and fed and exhausted and everything is great. Fast forward to Saturday afternoon... it must have been close to 1:00. We pull into the bus station in St. Louis... that would be EAST St. Louis... and I saw a KFC across the street. Not perfect, but it had been more than 12 hours since we had seen anything that wasn't from a vending machine. So we cross the (deserted) street, exhausted, with all of our luggage.
We eat.
We dump our tray.
We go to the restroom.
We head back across the street.
We get in line.
Again.
And then I realize that my cell phone is missing. In fact, the last time I remember seeing it was when I put it on my tray at KFC so I could keep an eye on the time and we wouldn't miss the bus.
I left Bean with the luggage, ran (hobbled) back across the street and (oh yeah) dug through the trash. I found it, covered in mashed potatoes. Classic. I ran (hobbled) back across the street and back to Bean who is FREAKING out because in the 5 minutes I was gone they called our bus. So we ran (she ran, I hobbled) outside to get in line. Again. And I am still holding this mashed potato covered phone that I am not sure is even still alive. Luckily, I plan for these kinds of disasters (remember, I have lived with me for almost 33 years now... I'm getting pretty good at this) and there were baby wipes in my bag.

The phone works.