Do Not Read This Blog On Your Computer. It May Cause Explosions.

I recently bought a new phone a little more than a month ago, when I switched from Verizon to Cingular.

Now, as you look at this phone, you'll probably notice that it seems pretty normal and harmless right? Wrong! If you happen to read the novel which is the instruction manual, you'll quickly find out this innocent-looking phone could very easily qualify as the most intricate, complicated, high-maintenance, and potentially dangerous object in your entire house, and quite possibly the entire world. And yes, I'm holding it up to my ear, pressed against my head, every single day. Yippee.

What makes this phone such a fright you ask? Well, allow me to quote numerous safety guidelines taken directly from the LG C2000 User Guide, and you can make your own decision on whether or not my life is in immediate danger by owning this phone, or if the technical writer(s) who wrote this booklet were being overly melodramatic.


Safety Instructions

• Never store your phone in settings that may expose it to temperatures less than 32°F or greater than 104°F. Exposure to excessive cold or heat will result in malfunction, damage and/or catastrophic failure.

Catastrophic failure? As if malfunctioning and damage wasn't enough? Now you have to subject my fears to the possibility of such an intimidating and vague term like a catastrophic failure? I associate a word like catastrophic to something like the engine of a plane exploding or all four stomachs of a cow ceasing to function...not my cell phone failing to work. "My phone doesn't work! Help! The world is coming to an end!"

• Be careful when using your phone near other electronic devices. Never place your phone in a microwave oven as this will cause the battery to explode.

Explode? Explode?!? First of all, who in their right mind would ever put their cell phone in a microwave in the first place? And is this such a common problem that it is necessary to include in the user guide? Do people often confuse their TV dinners or Tupperware products with their cell phones because they look so similar? Maybe some distracted person might put the phone down to warm up a leftover meal and in his ineptitude place the phone in the microwave while sticking last night's pasta in his ear, prompting a completely different canelloni-related (or should I say Canaloni?) problem aside from the recently exploded cell phone in his microwave.

• Never place your phone in a microwave oven as it will cause the battery to explode.

What, again? Is it really necessary to tell people this twice? I think we get the point by now. Microwaves + Cell Phones = Things Go Boom.

• Do not dispose of your battery by fire or with hazardous or flammable materials.

Oh wonderful. Not only will it explode, or so I'm guessing as that seems to be the common theme so far, but this means I can't make my famous battery acid, gasoline, and dry brush bonfires anymore. I don't think the people who wrote this book ever have any fun.

• Make sure that no sharp-edged items such as animal's teeth, nails, come into contact with the battery. There is a risk of this causing a fire.

Fire? From biting and scratching? Hmm, sounds like an obvious case of severe animal-related explosion fires to me. Possibly quite catastrophic.

• Store the battery in a place out of reach of children.

Wait. So I have to disassemble the phone and store the battery separately from it in a child-proof, and more importantly, explosion-proof place? That's practical.

• Be careful that children do not swallow any parts such as rubber plugs (earphone, connection parts of the phone, etc.) This could cause asphyxiation or suffocation.

(Or explosion.)

• In a car, do not leave your phone or set up the hands-free kit near to the air bag. If wireless equipment is improperly installed and the air bag is activated, you may be seriously injured.

Yeah, the one thing that actually can potentially blow up: the air bag. Yet ironically, it only gets two measly sentences of mentioning, though its chance of "exploding" and deploying is infinitely greater than any of these other ridiculous situations.

• Do not use a hand-held phone while driving.

No cell phone while driving? Yeah, that could happen. Shya, and exploding cell phone batteries might fly out of my butt.

• Do not use the phone in areas where its use is prohibited.

Duh?

• Never store your phone in temperatures less than -4°F or greater than 122°F.

Yet, as previously mentioned, I thought the acceptable range was 32°F to 104°F. But I doubt this is really a problem, unless you're either an Eskimo or an extremely sociable sand dune.

• Do not use harsh chemicals (such as alcohol) or detergents to clean your phone. There is a risk of this causing a fire.

You're supposed to clean your phone? I guess this just means that if you actually want to clean it some day, you can't ask Jack Daniels to help you.

• Do not use your phone in high explosive areas as the phone may generate sparks.

In other words, no using your phone in your local TNT factory or land mine emporium.

• Do not disassemble the phone.

I guess if we can't be trusted not to stick our phones in the microwave or clean them with a six-pack, then this disclaimer really is necessary because we obviously can't be trusted to resist the urge to take them apart and see how the infernal devices work...because heaven knows if we can't tell the difference between a plate of food and a phone, we'll never rebuild it into any semblance of what it used to look like without somehow blowing ourselves up in the process.

• Only use the batteries, antennas, and chargers provided by LG.

Translation: We want more money.

• Only authorized personnel should service the phone and its accessories. Faulty installation or service may result in accidents...

...Yeah, accidents. I.E. Explosions.

• Do not hold or let the antenna come in contact with your body during a call.

Why? Will I explode?!?

• An emergency call can be made only within a service area. For an emergency call, make sure that you are within a service area and that the phone is turned on.

I give up. If anyone is so utterly ignorant to the fact that your phone has to be on in order to make a call, no user guide on the face of this earth is going to save them now. And you have to be in a service area? You mean there has to be a signal too? My goodness, how complicated these devices are!

• Using a damaged battery or placing a battery in your mouth may cause serious injury.

NO KIDDING!!!!!!!!

And then, last but not least, there's my personal favorite:

• Do not paint your phone.

Do people actually do this? "My phone is boring. I think I'll paint it red and give it racing stripes so it'll go faster! I...hey, why can't I open my phone?"


So basically, what I've learned from all this is:

You can't do anything right as the owner of a cell phone. Anything you do can and will cause your phone to spark, spontaneously burst into flames, and explode without warning...several times over.

Ah, the joys of technology.

If technology had a motto, it would be: "Live longer. Die faster."

The BIG Change

The time has come. My days at Taco Bell are coming to a close. Just tonight, I told my manager, Thaddus, that I was quitting, and he was very supportive and said that he would miss having me around.

Why am I quitting, you ask? Taco Insurrection? Bad Gas? Finally had your fill of stupid people?

Not yet. Often. Yes.

Actually, the main reason I am quitting Taco Bell is because I have been offered a job at Home Depot. It pays $8.75 an hour to start, goes up to $9.25 an hour after 90 days, while at the same time, my benefits will kick in. My benefits include full life, dental, medical, animal, vegetable, mineral, not to mention lots of others which I probably will never need. However, the most significant is something called "Tuition Reimbursement". Basically, Home Depot will pay for 50% of my school tuition/fees/books as long as I am working for them and going to school and am in a major which can potentially help my job skills. And, as an English major, I qualify because it is such a broad and versatile major that covers so many different aspects of learning.

So it all seems very exciting. I have to wait for my background check to be finished before I can start training. Also, I had to go take a drug test today, which was interesting. For those of you who haven't taken a drug test before, what it basically consists of is you going into a medical facility, them handing you a plastic cup, and you going into the bathroom and attempting to pee into the seemingly undersized and uncomfortably thin layered cup. It is a very uncomfortable and unnatural situation, because essentially, you no longer have a large porcelain bowl to pee into. Instead, it is replaced with a plastic "toilet" which has seemingly shrunk to minuscule size.

So I go to the pee place, fill out a small form unrelated to pee, and sit down and wait in the lobby. Eventually, an Asian man calls me in. He has me sign something not dissimilar to a specimen-permission-slip, basically allowing them to take my urine on a field trip to see the Space Needle in Peattle, Washington, or possibly to see the capital in Washington P.C.

He then hands me the proverbial cup, and directs my attention to the side of the cup where there are increments in milliliters, and instructs me to fill the cup to the 50 ML line. He says that I can fill it more if I want, but that it needs to be at least 50 ML. I look at the side of the cup, and determine how much of the cup I'd need to fill in order to get 50 ML of urine. The line looks to only be about an 1/8 of the way up the cup.

So I proceed to the bathroom with a purpose in mind: To pee into this cup to the best of my masculine ability.

As I enter the bathroom and lock the door, my self-confidence flies out the window. All of a sudden, my head begins to be filled with question after question of things that could go wrong.

Do I set it down? Do I pee directly into the cup while holding it? Will it splash? What if the stream is so powerful that it knocks the cup out of my hands and it gets all over? What if I pee on my hand? What if I get the sudden urge to pee really badly and I fill the cup up so much that it begins to spill over the edge? What if I drop it on the way back? What if...what if I get thirsty...?

And these questions were coming from someone who many years ago as a lovable yet ignorant child had to do a urine test for some reason or another. I remember back then thinking that peeing into the tiny cup was ridiculous, so I thought of another method. Basically, I ended up peeing into the toilet and scooping out the urine from the toilet into the cup, thinking that I was doing it the correct way. Needless to say, I got the results back as being heavily diluted. So I knew that today, I was going to have to conquer my fears and pee directly into the cup.

It is a very humbling feeling to know that you are holding a cup filled with your urine and the only thing separating it from you is a mere thin layer of plastic.

It didn't take me long to realize that it wouldn't be hard to get the required 50 ML of urine. So I did what any guy would do: Fill it up as far as I could. Most guys are not overachievers in anything. However, all guys are overachievers at peeing. (Case In Point: I used to sleep over at my friend David's house when I was younger, and every day when I'd wake up, I'd go to the bathroom and pee for the better part of the morning. And every time, David would be amazed at my endurance and thought it was so cool that I could pee for longer than he could). Anyway, if a guy is asked to pee in a container that holds 16 ounces, yet he is only required to provide 1 ounce, your typical guy sees it as a challenge to fill up all 16 ounces. Most likely he won't fill it all the way, but as long as he surpasses the measly requirement, he can rest easy at night knowing that he has surpassed the requirements necessary to maintain his manhood. Either that, or guys are just afraid to try and make the difficult transfer in midstream back to the toilet. Guys can't aim. Ask any guy. He'll tell you. And for that reason, I was frightened to trust myself to pee in this little cup and ONLY in this little cup.

However, all turned out well. I managed to return back to the Asian man without falling and/or spilling. I greeted him with a big overachieving smile on my face as if expecting a friendly male congratulation, like, "Hey, nice effort", or "It's so warm!" He took it from me rather nonchalantly, and told me that he was going to pour it into a vial and seal it in front of me, I guess to ensure that he wasn't going to swap it with his own pee or something...or to prove that he really wasn't as thirsty as he looked. Once he finished that, he told me that the test would be completed in 2-3 days, and then he bid me adieu.

So I walked back to my car, thinking about how much of a goof I must have looked like earlier, carrying a cup of my own pee around. In retrospect, it would have been funny to try and offer a complimentary glass of warm lemonade to unsuspecting people in the lobby area.

So yeah, I made P-Dripple proud today. I peed in a cup successfully, without turning my shorts into Wet Side Slacks.