Don't Call Me, I'll Call You -- I Hope

Yesterday, one of the newer (and still nicknameless) members of the Singles invited us over to his place for a pool party in honor of his birthday. The Birthday Boy, PigPen, Squiggly, and The Anti-Cap'n decided to take advantage of the pool, while Li'l Dill, Cap'n Bubbles, the other nickless guests, and myself just sat and visited. The Birthday Boy's mom tried hard to talk Li'l Dill and me to jump in the pool with the others; if I hadn't been there Dill might have caved, since his theme song is practically "He's Just a Boy Who Can't Say No," but I was there urging him to be strong and resist his nice-guy urge to please everyone. After a while, everyone exited the pool to eat, and then we wound up playing a game of Cranium; I loved being on a team with Squiggly, who enjoys doing all of the word scrambles and Hangman-styled fill in the blank questions as much as I do, a rarity indeed. PigPen declined to participate in the game, having apparently gotten his fill of it the previous evening when we played it at Trouble's house, and instead just lounged around in the pool, soaking up the rays. Not soon after we finished up the game, PigPen, who had gotten out of the pool for something, hopped back in and swam the length underwater, which I saw as a perfect opportunity to rush to the other side and wait for him to surface in order to peg him in the head with a small squishy ball. While I did manage to launch the ball at him while he was still unawares, my miserable aim unfortunately resulted in a miss. I bemoaned loudly, "I can't believe I missed that clo-- whoa!" That exclamation at the end was my reaction to having been shoved from behind by the sneaky Birthday Boy, who was incredibly pleased with himself for getting me soaking wet -- at least, he was until one of the landlocked onlookers asked if the Birthday Boy had stopped to think about what I had in my pockets. It was only then that I thought about what I had in my pockets: according to PigPen, he could see the realization explode across my face instants before I lifted my poor, waterlogged cellphone out into the air for all to see.

Needless to say, this kind of put a pall over my enjoyment of the rest of the party. I wasn't really ticked at the Birthday Boy; after all, he couldn't have known that I, thinking that the odds of me getting tossed in the pool had dissipated once everyone else had gotten out, had put my phone back in my pocket out of habit. I was just upset in general at the fact that my lifeline to the rest of the world had just gotten snipped yet again. My old, crappy cell phone? Never got it wet once. My new, fancy cell phone? Totally submerged, twice in as many months. The fact that it recovered once gives me a hope that it might recover this time as well; then again, the fact that it's been injured once before makes me fear that this second time I won't be so lucky.