Pregnant klutz... or something more sinister?

So, here are the choices:
  • I've had a run of bad luck
  • I'm that stereotypical clumsy pregnant lady
  • or... I can kill electronics with a single touch.
I'm going for #3.

Last weekend, I decided I was going to grind it out a little in Call of Duty: MW3. I'm up to prestige level 6, which... if you know nothing about it, takes a lot of time. Yes, I'm a nerd.

So I turn on the Xbox 360. I'm navigating the dashboard, ready to click on "launch" for my game, aaannnnd it freezes. So, I restart. This time, it freezes again on the initial loading screen. So, I restart again.

And then it happens:

RRoD
The notorious Red Ring of Death (aka the RRoD).

What is a pregnant lady to do when she can't shoot people online? She cries, that's what she does.

I don't want to spend $200 on a new Xbox right now (ok, that's a lie. I want to, I just shouldn't), so I find an online tutorial of how to fix the RRoD. I email it to Buster. We go out and spend $30 on the supplies needed to fix it.

And Buster gets to work.


And after $30 of supplies, two hours of Buster's hard work (and sweat, and curse words)... no dice. A different error (not recognizing the disc drive, which requires flashing... something we aren't quite skilled enough to do), and then more rings of death. So Buster chucked it in a garbage bag (yes, we kept the hard drive!), and that as that. No more Xbox 360.

Sigh.

Fast-forward two days. I'm home sick (after the recent vomiting episode), and ready to curl up on the couch under a blanket with my Kindle. But I'm also playing around on my phone, and decide to jump up and show something on my phone to Buster. I leave the Kindle on the couch, throw the blanket off of me, and run into the other room.

I come back to the couch, ready to curl up again. I put my foot and leg up on the couch, ready to lay back down. And I hear a crack.

o_O

The Kindle was hiding under the blanket (yes, exactly where I left it. I'm a moron.). And my heel came down on the screen, and cracked it.

:(
So, knowing that Amazon has amazing customer service...

Wait. Let's stop there. Back up.

I know they have great customer service, because one month ago, I broke my first Kindle. I had that baby for about 2 1/2 years. I took it to the beach, and on one of our final days there I spilled water on the screen, and something very similar to what is pictured above happened.

When we got home from the beach, I called Amazon. I knew my warranty was void (they only last a year), but they offered me a replacement for $60. I'll take it! And I did.

And it took me one month to break the new one.

So, knowing that Amazon has amazing customer service, I called and told them my dilemma.

Little did I know, if you tell the TRUTH of what happened, it voids your warranty. The only way that the warranty means anything is if you LIE about what happened to your Kindle. 

"Yeah, I went to turn on my Kindle and the screen was frozen and not working..."

I guess I could have said that. But I'm honest. Which means I have to pay up.

Another $60 for a replacement Kindle. No thank you. I'll go buy a book this time.

Fast-forward to today.

My alarm goes off at 6:00 a.m. I groggily get out of bed. A night's worth of pregnant-hormone-induced dreams have left me feeling incredibly unrested.

I grab my phone and head in the bathroom. I take my phone in so I can check the time as I'm getting ready.

As I'm crossing the bathroom, ready to hit up the toilet, I drop my phone. Face down. In the tiny narrow hard space between two soft, comfy rugs.

Filled with dread, I reach down to pick up my phone (an HTC Evo 4G that I love...), and find this:

:( :(
And I'm officially electronically fucked. The trifecta is complete.

Luckily (??) my phone still works, but putting it to my face is an act of daring all its own. You have to be sure that whoever is on the other end of the call is worth taking a shard or two of fragmented glass to the cheek.

I called Sprint, and apparently I have insurance on this phone (I DO??? Holy shit... usually I turn that down). But it has a $100 deductible.

So, $100 later, my new Evo is in the mail.

I'm afraid to get in my car to drive home from work.

Apparently I'm so new kind of "simpler life" superhero, killing these pesky modern-day electronics with a single touch.

I advise avoiding me at all costs.

You've been warned.

Comments

  1. OMG that is too funny. I think we're soulmates. If I eye any piece of technology suggestively it will just burst into flames.

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  2. OMG I could have written this post. I feel your pain. :)

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  3. I do feel safe visiting you, however, because I have no electronic devices in my person. Pace-maker-wearers beware though!! (funny enough, it took three tries to click over to your blog successfully... hmm...)

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  4. Oh NO!!! Scary - I've done similar things... Once you get your new phone, you should download the Kindle app and you can read books on your phone - it's a free app, by the way. That way you have less things to break! :)

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  5. What a string of bad luck! I hope that's the end of it :( I've had weeks (or months) like that myself, where just everything goes wrong. Really really sucks. Sorry.

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  6. I have a similar superpower, except mine is stronger and kills major appliances. In the past 6 months I've had to replace my stove, washer, fridge, and lawnmower. You are not alone.

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  7. When it comes to electronics something always happens to them at the same time. I had a day like that not too long ago. My computer went blue screen of death, the dvd player wouldn't stay on and my phone kept restarting itself. I hope nothing else happens.

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  8. The laughter on this end is purely sympathetic, I promise. What a crazy string of bad luck! If it makes you feel better, my luck is like Jenny's: every electrical device in my kitchen has been replaced due to me. Grey has yet to let me live that one down.

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  9. Oh dear! What tough luck! I would have cried at all three as well. The only shooting part I play on xbox is where you kill zombies, good stress relief (even if I suck).

    Anyways, I had never ruined a phone in water, and used to text while soaking in the tub all the time (daringly stupid I know) for YEARS. And then in the span of 3 months I had my phone commit suicide twice. Once by vibrating into the tub with me from the ledge. And the second time fell out of my pocket and into...the toilet. Yes, toilet. A pee filled toilet. Talk about bad luck! hopefully your bad luck spree is over, things come in threes. Or so they say! :)

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  11. LOL... awwww *HUGS*
    I have a slow death touch when it comes to electronics :P
    That really does suck though.
    I hope you'll get your Xbox replaced. Maybe your hubs will surprise you with a new one so you can go back to shooting up shit :D Relieve some of that pregnancy stress! hehe

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  12. I think this is just not your technology week. Here's hoping you get your devices fixed and this was just a one time fluke.

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  13. Duuuuuude. I audibly gasped when I saw your RRoD photo. Fellow nerd here!

    Here's hoping you continue to purchase insurance and extended warranties!

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  14. Wow that is truely horrible. I would be crying my hormone crazed eyes out. I think you may want to avoid most electronics for a while. Your computer could be next and then how will you blog!?

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  15. I have to say I chuckled a little. I dropped my iphone in the TOILET a couple months ago but totally lucked out because it STILL WORKS! Still, I've done it before, and that old phone didn't survive (I've also washed one in the washing machine) so I feel your pain!

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  16. Oh no! We got the Red Ring of Death a couple weeks ago but luckily we had a friend that had a newer Xbox and didn't want his old one (the same model we had) so he sold it to us for $50! It even had a bigger hard drive and he had the transfer cable so we could transfer everything from our old hard drive to the new one.

    Sorry you have been having bad luck with electronics. I would be crying too. I love my gadgets!

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  17. You can fix your Kindle, I'm writing a how to, on my blog.
    www.english-with-craig.co.uk/blog

    I can also fix the RROD

    I feel your pain so much, I was one toe stub away from fucking crying recently.

    I'm sorry but your bad news makes me glad that I'm not the only one who god seems to hate :D

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