18 Hour Blonde Moment

This weekend I went out of town to visit some friends. I spent Friday night in Virginia with one friend and then traveled with him to see some other friends in Maryland on Saturday and Sunday. When going to MD, I mistakenly left my phone charger in my own car in VA. My battery was getting low by the time I got back to VA around 1 or 2 am Monday morning. I didn't realize there was a problem until I was ready for bed and I heard my phone making the "battery is almost dead" noise. I should explain that this phone is rather new to me (it's shelley's old one because I dropped mine in the toilet--another blonde moment). Since acquiring this phone, I have been unable to turn it off. I hold in the little button with red on it (apparently this is called the "end button") and nothing happens. It didn't really concern me until now. I just thought "oh well maybe it's an old phone; maybe there's something wrong with it". I mentioned this to my friend at 2 am Monday morning, then went to sleep. Around 11 am (still in bed) I heard my phone ring and as I picked it up to answer the call it went dead. I tried to charge it and by the looks of the little bar on the edge of the screen going up and down (the scrolling "battery power indicator"), it appeared to be working. After an hour or so I tried to turn it on (using that little button with the red on it) but nothing happened. I waited a little longer and tried again. Still nothing. I didn't really want to make the trip without my phone working so I hung around a while longer. My friend had gone to work by this time so I was there alone. The house phone didn't have long distance so I couldn't even check my messages. The only numbers I could have called that would not have been long distance were my dad and the cell phone of the friend I was staying with. Of course, I don't have these numbers memorized so without access to my cell phone contacts I was SOL. My phone company doesn't exist in Virginia. I didn't know the password to get online. I was totally incommunicado. I had also messed up the multimedia computer tivo thingy so that I could not even watch tv. I tried to call my MD friends collect but the operator said they don't accept collect calls. She asked if I wanted to charge it to the phone I was calling from so I did. I called my friend and asked her to look up an 800 number for my phone company. The tech support genius (pot...kettle) told me I should buy a new battery. I gave up on getting it working about then (2 hours after I had been ready to leave) and headed for home. I stopped at my office so I could call and check my messages (since I don't have a home phone). I then called the local Immix store and told the nice man my problem. He told me that if I stopped by he would look at it, which I promptly did. (Side note: After several months of observation and comparing stories with friends I've come to the conclusion that Immix apparently only hires hot 20ish men). I handed him my phone, he took the battery out, and stuck in a new one. I then noticed that when he tried to turn the phone on he used a different button (the "power key"), located on the top edge of the phone. I thought "oh fuck my battery's not dead, I just don't know how to turn on the damn phone". While he tested the new battery, I struggled to hold back sighs, groans, and other vocalizations of dismay as thoughts ran through my head of the 3 hours of wasted time I will never get back (or, as I was measuring it, the 8 or 9 Scrubs episodes I could have been watching while snuggled on my couch). Of course, I couldn't let on that I'm a complete moron. So I just let him give me a new (free) battery and was on my way. I called my friend in VA and told him the story. He said he had been thinking about asking to see my phone when I made the statement about not being able to turn it off but he didn't want to make me feel stupid. :)