I love the way technology works when it’s not supposed to and doesn’t when it does, if you know what I mean.

I needed to bring my mobile phone with me on holidays because I had to make some calls during my trip.  I suppose I could make them from a phone box or somewhere, but it is handier to just bring my mobile.

About an hour before we were due to leave, I remembered my phone and checked it.

Dead.

Dead as a fucking Dodo.

Not a peep out of it.

I tried everything but it resolutely refused to switch on.  I tried removing the battery and jiggling it.  Nothing.  The screen was as blank as Mary Harney’s face when she’s asked about the future of the health service.

I was a little worried about this, as I had a lot of girlfriends’ important numbers stored.  I phoned our K8 and she managed to rob TAT’s phone as he was asleep, and said I could borrow it.  This was grand, so I swapped the little bit of plastic inside, deleted all TAT’s stored numbers and I was finally ready to go.

I haven’t the faintest idea why, but I decided to pack my dud phone as well.  Maybe I thought I could get it fixed in France, or maybe it was just a drop of dementia.  Who knows?

On our second morning after a hotel overnight stop, Herself was sleeping off her hangover having a little lie in, so I sat out at the car, checking a few things.  I came across my useless mobile phone, so I idly started poking it and prodding it.  It was still as dead as Cowen’s last brain cell.

I sat there wondering what I was going to do with it when it slipped out of my hand and fell……….. straight into my mug of tea which I had placed on the ground.

I cursed because it was a nice mug full and I had only had one sip out of it.  I watched the phone sink beneath the golden liquid and waited while one last little bubble broke the surface.

I took another swig out of the mug, as I don’t believe in wasting good tea even if it is a little Nokia flavoured.  I then realised I could see the end of the phone just below the surface, so I fished it out.  Not wanting to waste any of the precious liquid, I took the back off and poured the contents into my mug.

The phone of course was finished.  Even I could see that.  The screen had gone all milky and the circuits would be shot.

Just for old times sake, more than anything else I pressed the power switch, maybe in the hope that there would be one last spectacular little shower of sparks, befitting the end of a faithful phone.

But the fucking thing worked perfectly!

I slammed the little bit of plastic in, and fired it up properly.  It dripped a few times, but everything seem in full working order, if a little wet.

It just goes to prove the restorative power of a good mug of tea?