Battery Suckage

Pitting…

  1. …my cell phone battery, for dying mysteriously yesterday, and refusing to be resuscitated via the charger.
  2. …my car’s battery, for also dropping dead.

And an extra-special pitting to me for thinking that getting drunk at a work-sponsored happy hour last night would be a fun way to deal with all the crap that went wrong. While I only had three drinks, one was pink and had six straws sticking out of it. It was like someone crammed four years of college into a single drink, then shoved it into an ice-filled bucket.

Ok, the cramming of the college remark made me laugh my ass off!
As for the phone charger, it isn’t one of those nifty pda type things with a smart charger, is it? 'Cause I might have a solution to that. Can’t help you with the car battery, though. That suckage must stand alone!

Nope…it’s a simple little Motorola Razr.

But…here’s the freaky part. And I swear on St. Cecil that I am not making this shit up…

My buddy drives me to a local strip mall where they have a T-Mobile store. Apparently they don’t sell solo batteries there for the Razr, and they don’t have any batteries from returned phones (which they usually have in stock), so I decide I’m going to get a new phone.

They hand me a couple brochures, which I look at over lunch, and I return to the store. While waiting for a customer service rep, I feel a vibrating in my left front pocket, which is weird because 1) my phone isn’t working and 2) even if it was it was in my rear right pocket. Not to worry…I sometimes get these “phantom vibrations” reminiscient of incoming text messages. But…it does drive me to check out my phone again.

It’s on. Fully charged. With two voice mails and a text message. “Behold the healing power of the T-Mobile store,” my friend proclaimed (a bit too loudly), and we left…with me feeling a strange mix of confusion, fear and wonder at my self-regenerating phone.

So, on the way back to the office, I decide, hell, I should see if my car works now (it had died at the office last night, and was still there). I joke with my buddy that the car would likely now start, too, but that I’m going to be sitting there not wanting to turn it off…and still needing to go into work. He jokes that if it starts I have to stop poking fun at the members of the God Squad that I work with, and start attending Sunday mass with them.

And the car starts. And I’m sitting there, not wanting to turn it off, but needing to go into work. And my friend is standing outside the car, with a fearful look on his face, genuflecting (he’s Irish Catholic). To be fair, the car BARELY started, but once it did…it was ready to go…but still…wow. Freaky day.

<screams and runs away from thread>

Is it possible that, after having downed a bucket full of alcoholish recreation, you attempted to make a phone call with a business card holder and tried to start somebody else’s car?

Woah! I bet you can make street lights go dark when you walk past them too!

My professional opinion, your handset has suffered liquid ingress. Or it has a faulty cell within the battery. (one cell of the four-ish in the battery is lying about it’s charge level)

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