BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?

Subject: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Mr Yellow
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 05:28 AM

No not me - but a colleague.

I just wondered - he (young and drunk) claims it is one of the most common phone problems - I wonder would a straw pole of sober 'Catters (;-) r4eveal quite such a big problem or is this phenomenom the preserve of young men?

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: JennyO
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 05:43 AM

I've never heard of it before, but I once dropped one of our little cordless landline phones in the washing-up water. I scooped it up again almost in the same action, shook it, patted it dry with a teatowel, opened up the battery compartment and took the batteries out, and once I was satisfied I had got it as dry as I could, I let it sit like that in a dry place overnight. The next day I put it all back together and it seemed none the worse for wear. That was a year ago at least, and it's still okay. I think I was lucky.

I wouldn't be so keen to do the same thing with a phone that had fallen in the toilet - especially if it was "after the event", so to speak.

EEEEEEEEEUUUUUWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 05:50 AM

I was going to make a tasteless joke about camera phones and toilets but I can see a fat cat on the fence and I have a water pistol.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 05:51 AM

It is very common, I often used to deliver replacement phones to people who had had their phones fall of their belt clip, or out of their pocket down the loo, when lowering said trousers to defecate. I did it myself, except that I did it from the 'kangaroo' pocket on the front of a sweatshirt, when I lifted it up to access the male frontal area when going for a pee.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 06:00 AM

Yep - done it myself. Got myself a Nokia 5410i that is rubber cased now:-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: John O'L
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 06:52 AM

If the phone has fallen out of his shirt pocket while he's kneeling over the bowl vomiting drunk and wailing ah let me die, then yes
that's about as common as it gets I'm afraid.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 06:59 AM

I suspect some of these stories are made up and will only be convinced when photographic evidence is posted on an appropriate website

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Michael
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 07:11 AM

Dropping a mobile phone down the toilet is just soooo common that I can't believe any Mudcatter would even consider it.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Moses
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 07:33 AM

It's happened twice to one of my daughters.

Once, on a night out, it was balanced on a ledge beside the bowl and she knocked it off - fortunately after the flush.

The second time she had her boy-friend's phone in a jean-jacket top pocket, bent over and it lept out of the pocket and went straight down the yard-drain, the cover of which had just been removed for rodding. She had rubber gloves on this time and was very quick.

Both times the phones survived the dunking probably because she immediately took them apart and carefully dried all the bits.

Not sure this would work with today's models that have removeable memory sticks, photo and video facilities - lots of nooks and crannies for the water to get into and lots of high-tech stuff to go belly-up.

I think both daughters now have insurance.

Christine

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 07:56 AM

oh yes, I've done it. Can't fix the little buggers either!

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 08:05 AM

I've had a lot of friends do this (male friends) who keep their phones in their pockets. So I've heard this alot...

Another recent one was my nephew who walked in to the sitting room to tell his dad... Uh oh daddy... I've washed it... on getting up to go and see what is was the toddler had washed - he discovered it was his brand new mobile phone, which was at the bottom of the bowl all soapy.

The little blighter had dragged the kitchen stool over to the sink, and climbed up and washed the phone - along with other unsuitable things.

aw bless !@£)@£)(£$)(@*£$!

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Dazbo
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 08:33 AM

I believe John Kirkpatrick has written a song about it - Belinda Brown.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Grab
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 09:17 AM

Les, enquiring minds (and minds that don't like other people's cats in their garden) want to know:-

Did you get that cat...? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 09:44 AM

Would that it were more common. Sort of a natural control on the proliferation of the miserable things.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Scoville
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 09:46 AM

My phone's too big to go down the toilet very far. That's the problem with these thimble-sized new phones--too easy to lose.


On the other hand, I can't imagine why I'd even have the phone in the bathroom with me. TMI for the person on the other end.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 10:13 AM

Hate to say it but it happened to me last year...expensive phone...now have a cheap one....

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: number 6
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 11:01 AM

It's happened to me ... a pager once, and a phone the another time .. as Giok mentioned, falling off the belt clip is what happens ... actually is quite common ... it's happened to 2 co-workers of mine.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 11:37 AM

I perform at several festivals each year where there are Porta-Potties, or Porta-Johns. You know, the blue or green plastic outhouse thingies.
Well, quite few (inebriated) folks drop their phones in there, and then want the festival volunteers or organizers to retrieve them.

The answer is invariably: No, sorry. You dropped it, you fetch it.

If it was me, I'd probably throw a $100 bill down there too, because there's no way I'd go in just for a stinkin' phone.

Seamus

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Becca72
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 11:43 AM

The advantage, perhaps, to being female is that my phone is located securely in my pocketbook whilst "using the facilities" and therefore nowhere near the john.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: open mike
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 11:49 AM

i saw someone in a phone store hand a broken phone to a clerk
asking for a replacement model. after it wes in her hand he explained where it had been and why it needed replacement!

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: jeffp
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 12:25 PM

Scoville - most men wear their phone on their belt, as do I. It goes wherever I go. I'm certainly not going to take it off just because I'm going to the bathroom. I probably wouldn't answer it in there, though.

I've never lost it down the toilet, but one time when we came in from sailing, I got all the lines secured, we shut everything down below, and got on the dock. I turned around and there was my phone, in its holster, hanging on one of the lifelines. Apparently the lifeline had slid up under the phone holster and slipped it off my belt without my realizing it. I'm glad I turned around! Now the phone goes in my sailing bag until we're back.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 12:29 PM

Dazbo, as you might guess, the cat got away. I think they are training me for something. See Les Barker "Guide Cats for the Blind"

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 12:40 PM

I assume I would do something careless, so I secure it in a holster or in a pocket it can't easily fall out of. I guess it's easier for me, as I don't often have to answer it in a hurry....I use it 95% for outgoing calls when I have time to dig it out.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 01:22 PM

Once I had one fall from a shirt pocket into the bowl. It was saturated by the time I got it. [It was a very early model.]
Another time, I accidentally knocked a marine radio into the bay. This was in the time before waterproof handhelds were common and the salt water got to it immediately.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 02:14 PM

Down the toilet is exactly the right place for mobile phones!

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 02:35 PM

I was waiting in the queue at a service station ladies when a terrible wailing came from one of the cubicles... you guessed it - the occupant was pulling up her trousers prior to flushing and her phone had flipped out of her back pocket as it rounded the curve....

I must admit to a sly giggle under cover of concern, and thanked the maker for the extra deep hip pockets in my trousers and the total lack of any back pockets.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 03:08 PM

Happened one of my daughters. But she did it in style: it was in an old bar in Paris and the toilet was a "chiotte turc", i.e. a hole in the floor jobbie!

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 05:30 PM

Not exactly the same thing, but a friend who did concrete contract work complained a few years ago that his employees had lost three of his "company phones" in just a couple of months, all nicely embedded in concrete foundations they were pouring. (None were recovered.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: terrier
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 07:19 PM

A few weeks ago I was on a local mountain road and stopped to pick up some mobile phone bits, they looked as if they'd been dropped and hit by a vehicle. When I got home I reassembled what was left of the phone and it still worked. If a mobile can survive this treatment, surely dropping it down the loo will not bother it.

In work a while ago I saw a mobile phone in bits on the table. When I enquired as to the reason, I was told that te 'wife' had put it through the washing machine with some clothes. After drying out, the phone worked fine.

The only way I know of to stop these little buggers from working is to put them in the micro wave and switch it on. It's sorta like poetic justice.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: bobad
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 07:25 PM

"in Paris and the toilet was a "chiotte turc""

Ah those French, they have such elegant names for things.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 11:13 PM

Alas, now I know why you all are looking so flushed.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: number 6
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 11:20 PM

mon telephone de cellule est tombe la toilette.

Oh merde!

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 12:55 PM

It never happened to me but I lost one in Bath (town not tub) by having it clipped to my belt. I have had it on a long string ever since - in case I need to answer it in a hurry - AND the string (and case) are red.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Mr Yellow
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 07:51 AM

Mark, our poor victim, reckons it runs to 600,000 a year.

I can believe the commonality but 600,00 - only one thing to say


Pooh

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 07:56 AM

I lost a set of contact lenses down a toilet once. That's my sad tale. They fell in (in their case, naturally) at the exact moment the toilet was flushing.

Regarding the mobile phones down the toilet? Yes, it's common, but it's still not common enough. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 08:48 AM

I have heard of false teeth being lost while throwing up.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 09:40 PM

Definitely -- I've moved from being a person who swore they would nver EVER have a cell phone to a person who takes it to the loo with me just in case (heaven forfend I should miss a phone call......what kind of super realtor would that make me?). And contrary to the various survival stories I read here, my phone was very very dead at the end of its experience. Going to the phone store for a replacement, I was told this is one of the commonest cell phone deaths out there.....

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: ragdall
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 01:18 AM

Not quite the same thing, but another case of a phone being lost from a pocket -- my son lost his mobile phone while helping friends transplant about 100 large trees. After watering all the trees well, he noticed the phone was missing. They tried ringing his number, but if the phone rang, nobody could hear it. Digging up all the trees was not an option, so the phone remains somewhere underground to delight a future archeologist.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 04:35 AM

Many years into the future someone will find the phone among the roots and assume it was a sacrificial gift to the tree goddess, like putting a coin in the hole when planting a special tree.

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: skipy
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 06:12 AM

Kate put hers through a full wash & spin cycle, I took the batt out & let it dry out.
Batt back in, perfect.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Nessie
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 06:47 AM

Mine didn't recover from a dive from a back pocket down the loo, nor did it's predecessor from a dip in the sea, along with the camera round my neck as I bent to retrieve it..

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 07:02 AM

Not your day was it Nessie?
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: The PA
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 07:38 AM

My son left his mobile in a jacket that I washed on a 60 degree wash. After we realised we took it apart as best we could and dried it out. After that is carried on working for about 6 months or so. When it finally gave up the ghost we wrote to Siemens and told them the story - they sent him a new phone, free of charge !!

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Dave Earl
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 08:11 AM

Well I haven't done that with a mobile but I did manage to drop the Walkie-Talkie at work.

Yes that was where it landed!! (before - not after)

I was rather too embarassed to declare what had happened so I merely said "here's another of these crap radios that's given up the ghost".

No! It is true and that is what I told my manager who said "do you mean you've thrown it in the loo?. Reponce from me was embarrases grin and shrug.

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Mr Red
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 06:12 AM

Hey - maybe the rinse cycle flushed most of the soap out - 60 deg may have shortend the life as would residual salts but the rinse would have helped.

No more dirty calls - cycle 12 on the washing machine - that'll cure them...............

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 05:59 PM

Just don't put it in with the softener... it makes them floppy and hard to dial.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 06 - 05:47 PM

happened to me yestersay, expensive phone, its still drying hope it works, forgot my phone was in my back trouser pocket and it fell in, without thinking i got the phone removed battery, sim and removable disc and started drying. felt so stupid after...

Subject: RE: BS: Is mobile phone down toilet - common?
From: GUEST,Scoville at Dad's
Date: 08 Dec 06 - 11:05 PM

New phone for Christmas and this one's even wider, though flatter, than the old one! Hooray! Even less flush-able.