After my morning shower Thursday, I grabbed the hamper and headed downstairs to do a load of wash. Nothing exciting there, right? But that would soon change.

While making my morning latte, I decided to check my email but I couldn’t find my iPhone. Then I remembered where it was when I saw it last. And then, seconds later, I knew where I’d find it now.

Before I’d headed downstairs, I’d placed my cell phone on top of the towels in the hamper in order to carry everything at once. My phone cover happens to be a beige cat that blended perfectly with the beige towel at the top of the hamper.

I think you know where I’m going with this. Somehow my precious, precious phone (yes, it warrants two precious’) must have slipped into the top towel, whereupon I chucked it into the washing machine. In addition, I programmed the water to be extra deep.

My phone happens to also be my business phone, which holds (or held, as the case may be) hundreds of contacts my coworkers don’t have. So when the realization hit, I panicked. Oh no, oh no, oh no! were my exact words. I might have even inserted a swear word or two. Most certainly, in fact.

I dashed into the garage, flung open the washer and grabbed the submerged towels. Those mothers are pretty heavy when you’re lifting 3 at a time, then flinging them like a wrestler throws his opponent. And there, at the bottom of the basin, floated my iPhone 5. Emphasis on floated.

I immediately grabbed the phone, ran to my computer and typed in: What to do when my iPhone takes a bath. I quickly clicked on the first site I saw — a 5 minute video explaining what to do. But here’s the thing…

When one is researching how to save a wet phone, wouldn’t you say time is of the essence? The last thing one wants is to listen to an exceptionally slow-speaking British chap explaining ways to remedy the situation as though I had all flipping day. I think he even enjoyed a spot of tea during his dissertation, oblivious to my panic attack.

Two minutes in, I cut him off when he said to remove the SIM card with a particular tool I never knew existed. And what are the odds that if I had one, I’d have remembered where I put it? Safe to say slim to none.

SIM card remover

So I grabbed my drowned iPhone, along with my iPad, and rushed to the Apple store. It was there I learned it was beyond resuscitation — DOA. Soon it would be residing in the cell phone graveyard.

A moment of silence please

I bought a new phone but naturally not all my contacts transferred over. I have no idea why, unless I didn’t properly backup my files. This is entirely possible. The icing on the cake is that I updated my computer the day before the cell phone incident, when I rarely update anything. Now some files are in places they shouldn’t be and others have seemingly vanished altogether. They just disappeared, poof!

To add insult to injury, when I left the Apple store, I needed to use the mall restroom. So I placed my iPad on a shelf and guess what? Yep. It fell off. Now the bottom of the screen is a swirl of black, purple and red. I’d say it’s a tad bruised, just like my ego.