What drew me to Fantasy and Science Fiction as a child was its emphasis on possibility. You can slay (or tame) that dragon. You can destroy the ring. Good triumphs over evil. New technology forces us to grips with our shortcomings and helps us remember our humanity. Though both genres offer examples where this is NOT the case (I Am Legend, Richard Matheson and A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin), this focus has often pushed me to ask the question “what if . . .” in my own life. Why not challenge overwhelming odds?
“Why not try out for the middle school starting fullback position on the football team? Never mind that I’m 90 pounds, sopping wet.”
“Why not ask that girl out? So what if she is out of my league?”
“What if I audition for the high school musical? Who cares if I’m I a senior and have never taken theatre before?”
“What if I self-publish this story?”
My best experiences come from dreaming big and following through. So when your Nokia 5310 GSM goes for a swim, dream big:
Saturday, November 6, 2010
The lifespan of your average cell phone is longer if it doesn’t go swimming in Clearlake, which is exactly what ours did last week, and all our contacts with it. (Not my fault.)
On Saturday I decide to mount a recovery effort. I pack up the kids and some essentials—socks, flippers, flipper-booties, snorkel mask, trunks—and head on back to the dock. Just so you know, the mask isn’t to see better. The bottom of Clearlake is actually buried in 8-inches of mud, oyster shells, and alligator droppings. It’s murky as all getout down there. The mask is actually for keeping the icy salt water off my cheeks and eyes.
I get all that stuff on, leaving the kids under a pile of clothes on the dock for insulation. They promise me they’ll sit. Unfortunately, the water is colder than I’ve anticipated and they giggle and run for high ground when I thrash in the water. They settle down after I assure them I won’t splash anymore. By now I’m too numb. They resume their assigned tasks of watching for alligators, keeping my emergency towels dry, and not falling in. Some of them shout helpful hints like, “You’re probably not going to find it,” and “I’m cold.”
I agree: it’s cold. I’ve only found a beer bottle. There’s nothing to see. It’s dark and cold down there and the only comfort is the fact that the mud is a few degrees warmer than the water. I climb up onto the dock.
“Get back in the water dad,” my five-year-old daughter, Eve, insists. She’s already said a prayer to help me find the phone, and she’s not about to let me give up. She uses her sweet-and-matter-of-fact-voice: “You need to look a little farther out.”
So I make a few passes a little farther out. I’m 8 feet under and about 10 feet from the dock now. The water is still icy and the mud is still black. The oyster shells are still scratchy. I swim as low as I can and hold my breath. This isn’t very long, because my chest keeps shriveling up and forcing the air out of my lungs thanks to the cold temperature. It’s been 15 minutes and staying out any longer would be foolishness. A SIM card is not worth this. . . .
My hand brushes over something rectangular and hard, right where Eve told me to look. I am not making this up.
I get out and strip down to my trunks, ignoring the “NUTJOB!” looks from passing motorists.
Eve hands me my towel and I hand her the phone. “Hold it carefully,” I say ineffectually as the phone slides down the slanted dock ramp. Luckily, it snags on a traction rail. We zip it into the jacket that Carter (7) has reluctantly returned to me.
“I’m cold.”
“Yeah, me too. Can you help me carry some of this stuff?”
Olivia (3) hops around gleefully on the way back to the car. “You did it, daddy! You did it!” Eve’s carrying the wet mask. Carter’s got my pair of corderoys wrapped around his neck like an extra-long scarf.
After a short operation at home, it’s obvious that the SIM card works. I know because we put it in a somewhat drier, older model phone that we’d been using as kid bait for the last few years.
When my wife gets home she is shocked to see the old phone operating under brain transplant. “I thought that phone was gone forever!”
“Some of it may be,” I respond, “but the contact list isn’t.”
Dream big.
Go, Eve. And good job, Ben. Way to love out your dreams of swimming in icy cold muddy water.