Hands Down, This Day Was Crappier than Yours

Chances are, if you know somebody, they at one time dropped their cell phone in the toilet.  If not, then you ARE that somebody.  It happens. Does anyone not take in a device in the bathroom these days?  We've forgotten how to just sit and think on the throne.  And so what if it drops in??  Not only will a cup of rice cure our woes, but the phone got washed in water at the same time.

I'm about to tell you a true story.  This story is tragic, horrific, and filthy.  If I could rate it, it would definitely be mature, R, or possibly worse.  It should come with its own advisory:  You may want to save this story to read late at night when the kids are asleep so you won't have to console their cries.  You don't want to be eating and reading for fear of choking/vomiting or both.  You might want to read in a closet for if the neighbors hear your screams they may call the police. Proceed at your own risk.

As ugly and shocking as this story is above, it would've been heavenly compared to our story, but true to Tanner tales, it couldn't have been a clean toilet, nor a private toilet, or even just one toilet.   We were at Coachella music festival this past weekend where over 200,000 tickets are sold.  If anyone has ever been to music festivals, then this is a familiar sight:

Porta potties.  Imagine all those people sharing all those restrooms and I think you can see where I'm headed. Brynna and I went to the restrooms and I had to wait an unusual lengthy time for her.  She finally walked up to where I was but had this complete distressed look on her face.  I figured it was the 'oh crap, I need a tampon' look.  Unfortunately, my stomach cringed as she told me she lost her phone in the depths of the porta potty.  I half wanted to point and laugh at her hysterically and half wanted to instantly throw my hands around her neck and shake. This is where the story COULD have ended.  We could have let it be a prisoner to plastic potty god, but no, I am too cheap and I will not lose to a toilet.  Even completely damaged, we could still sell her phone for over $200- or pay a smaller than new phone fee for an exchange at Apple.  (No, of course we don't have Apple care.) I told Brynna, "We can't leave, you have to go get it!"  Her look was how I felt as we went back to the restrooms.   As we walked up, a horrible reality presented itself.  Because she had been in so much distress when it happened, Brynna had forgotten which porta potty she had been in.   Remember on the movie Poltergeist when the mom went upstairs to save her children and as she stared down the hallway it got longer and longer and seemed like a mile?  That was how the image was to me.  Truly, it was an endless row like this:

We had it narrowed down to 5. We had to continually keep people from going in and using them; each one gave us the 'better you than me" look.   As I looked down the hole of each one, it was a dark blue abyss with only who knows what crawling around in there...and I was going to have to put my hand in there.  I already hate lakes.  I hate the fact that fish can brush up against me and I can't see them. This was the lake taken to the extreme. Now before any of you say I don't have it in me- there was a time when Brynna had to wear a $250 contact in her eye.  Once we were at a restaurant, she was 6 months old, and it was bothering her, so I took it out and placed it in a cup of water.  I left the restaurant and didn't remember until later that afternoon that I left the cup.  So what did I do?  I crawled in the dumpster in the back of the restaurant and went through bags and bags of trash until I found it, which I did.  Heck, if I could find a clear contact in a dumpster full of trash, an iPhone in tampons, used toilet paper, feces, and urine wasn't going to be more challenging- just way more disgusting.  I found a maintenance worker and asked if they had extra trash can liners.  My critical thinking plan was to put my hand in the bag and use it as a ginormous glove and just blindly feel around until I found it.   Now, I've never wanted to kiss a big black woman before, but as she got on her radio and called for reinforcements and a staff of 5 people to come rummage through people's waste for me- I wanted to kiss her and leave her whatever inheritance I have.     Some went through with the handles of mops- some used the trash liner methods, and by the 5th porta potty, it was found.  Those poor people earned every cent of their minimum wage that weekend on this experience alone.  I feel so sorry for them, yet so grateful at the same time.  They went far beyond the call of duty for something I was willing to do on my own.  Coachella staff rocks. The phone was nasty, I'm not going to lie but I'll spare you the details.  We were all handling the phone like evidence from a crime scene.  Carefully carrying it with our plastic trash can liners over to the sink to give it a thorough rinse, soap and disinfecting job.  Since it had already been sitting in blue sanitation water (among other things) for over 10 minutes- I knew trying to sanitize the heck out of it wasn't going to harm it more than had already been done.  We stored it away and tried not to let it ruin our weekend and let it go to crap. (I have plenty more puns where that came from). We put it in rice when we came home.  We knew chances were slim to none, but were shocked when 2 days later it turned on and was functioning.  Now, mind you, it has a permanent blue background screen from the blue water, but amazingly is working.  Unfortunately, Brynna doesn't want to keep her limited edition Coachella Porta Potty screen saver, so we are ordering a new screen which Jason will replace and this will one day just be a distant, gross, dumpster/porta potty diving memory which I may or may not need therapy for. So next time yours ends up taking a dive in your own urine, take comfort in knowing you can identify who's DNA is on your phone.