The end came suddenly and neither one of us was ready. One minute, we were ice skating under the stars, and the next she was gone.
Could I have saved her? It’s hard to say. Frankly, it’s still a little difficult to talk about. My hands shake a little when I recall the exact moment I saw the words “Black Screen of Death”.
I tried everything Dr. Google suggested to save my phone, held the volume down and power up buttons until my fingers cramped, plugged her in and watched her little blue light flicker. No response.
She looked so normal, no signs of trauma at all, except fot the little chip in her top right corner from the time I gestured wildly and accidentally flung her into the wall. We’d long since moved past that indignity, though, and I thought we’d have a nice long life together.
I kept her plugged in overnight and assumed she’d be back to her old self by morning, but she never even twitched. Naively, I hustled her over to our local provider.
“I have some good news,” the technician salesman said. “You’re eligible for an upgrade.”
“No thank you,” I said. “I’d prefer to fix my phone.”
The young man looked startled, then made a good show of examining my phone.
“Yeah, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Can you take the back off? Maybe check the battery?”
“Phones don’t do that anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
“The backs don’t come off phones anymore. Let me show you what you’re eligible for with the upgrade.”
Turns out I was eligible to purchase at full price the latest version of whatever model my little heart desired.
“Don’t you have any deals going on?” I asked, eventually resigned to handing over my poor, loyal Samsung Galaxy S6.
“You can add a line of unlimited data, buy an S8 and get an S8 for free.”
“I already have six lines on my plan. That’s all my family needs. Can I upgrade a line I already have to unlimited data and get the free phone?”
“No. You have to add a seventh line.”
“That’s going to be a problem. We’re not planning to have any more kids.”
“You never know. You should probably add a line just in case. Kids are needing data at an earlier and earlier age these days.”
“Our youngest is 19. I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed.”
He gave me one of those “it could happen” shrugs and for a wild moment I considered his suggestion. But, actually bearing a fifth child to net a free smart phone seemed rather extreme, especially at my advanced age. Regretfully, I declined and eventually purchased a Samsung Galaxy S8, which looks suspiciously like the S6 I had to leave behind.
“Well, that wasn’t fun,” I said as we wrapped up my purchase.
No,” the salesman said. “It never is.”
I suppose the last thing you need is more sad phone news but……. I’ve had very poor reception with my Galaxy S8. When I finally went to Verizon and complained the tech admitted that others have had issues with the phone. He agreed to replace my SIM card at no cost to me BUT I continue to have poor reception with the phone. Good Luck. Oh, I love reading your blog!!
Rhonda Spence
Oh no! I’m really sorry to hear this. I felt like the S6 was a really good phone. I probably should have done more research on the S8. Thanks for the heads up (and the compliment) I really appreciate it.
Ben would be really happy to not be the youngest Biskupic cousin Laura….. just saying! (Laughted hard at this one)
Not only has that ship sailed, it is out of commission. And, Ben is the perfect youngest Biskupic cousin. He’ll leave a lasting impression of brilliance.
These darn phone companies are all the same!! We have Sprint. My iphone 6SE gets 2 bars in our house; 5 in the backyard. Hubby has a fliptop and gets 4-5 bars inside!! When I complained to Sprint, they first offered a Sprint router “free” to hook up to my Verizon router. It was great — 5 bars all the time. I got my bill next cycle and my bill went up almost ten dollars!! It turned out there are government taxes required for the router!! I called, then yelled when I was told I could return and there would be a restocking charge. After a little chatter on their FB page, the restocking charge was reversed. They then offered to upgrade the phone — no thank you — works great everywhere else.
PS So glad your blog is back!!