On October 21, 2001, the on-call cell phone in my possession willfully escaped from its holder and dove antenna first into a basin of soapy dishwater.   I was arraigned before the First Corporate Court of Perpetual Duty on the charge of Extreme Naughtiness Toward a Device of Torture.  What follows is my interrogation by the judge ...

Judge:  Mr. Blau, you are charged with deliberately and maliciously damaging a Corporate Asset for the purpose of evading your on-call responsibilities.  How do you plead?

Me:  Oh, please don't put me away, Your Honor.  Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!

Judge:  Well, that wasn't bad.  But what I meant was, how do you plead to the charge?  Guilty or not guilty?

Me:  Not guilty, Your Honor.  It was an accident!

Judge:  Hmm.  The record shows that, during the previous week, you had been awakened repeatedly by pages to the cell phone in question, that the pages had come at all hours of the day and night, and that on one night in particular, you got no sleep at all due to the incessant pages.  It has also come to the attention of this court that you have written several scurrilous tracts presenting pagers and cell phones in an unfavorable light, including one in which a character attempts to flush his cell phone down the commode.

Me:  Slander, Your Honor.  He was trying to flush a pager, not a cell phone.

Judge:  Well, then tell me in your own words how your cell phone managed to wind up in a tub of dishwater.

Me:  I was just washing dishes and minding my own business, when suddenly, the cell phone shot straight up in the air and did a swan dive into the dishwater.

Judge:  All by itself?

Me (shrugging):  Yes, Your Honor.  Pretty much, Your Honor.  The bottom of the phone accidentally caught on the top of the sink, and when I shifted my weight the second or third time, it just popped right out.

Judge:  And did you retrieve the device?

Me:  Oh, yes, Your Honor.  I immediately dove in after it.

Judge:  Immediately?

Me:  No more than 15 to 30 minutes later.

Judge:  Let me get this straight.  You dove into a dishpan full of soapy water?

Me:  Correct, Your Honor.  It was because the water was soapy that it took me an hour to locate the phone.

Judge:  Let's back up a minute.  How large was this dishpan?

Me:  Oh, about 12 by 15.

Judge:  And the unit of measurement would be ...?

Me:  Inches, of course.

Judge:  So, how could you dive into a container of that size?

Me:  When I say "dove in," I meant just with my head.

Judge:  Even so, ... Oh, let's forget that and move on.  When you retrieved the cell phone from the dishpan, did you dry it off?

Me:  I couldn't, Your Honor.

Judge:  Why not?

Me:  Because that was when the cell phone slipped down into the disposal.

Judge:  Into the disposal?  But, of course, the disposal wasn't running?

Me:  Not at first.

Judge:  What do you mean, "not at first?"

Me:  I, uh, accidentally turned it on.

Judge:  How on God's green earth ... ?

Me:  I was afraid that it might go on by itself, so I reached over to make sure that it stayed off.  While I was doing that, it seems that it accidentally got turned on.

Judge (mopping his brow with a large handkerchief):  Ok, did you get it out of the disposal?

Me:  Absolutely, Your Honor.

Judge:  And was the cell phone still operational at that point?

Me:  I don't know, Your Honor.  It had been submerged for so long that I figured my top priority was to dry it off.

Judge:  Am I going to regret asking how you did that?

Me:  Oh, no.  I whisked it into my microwave oven and gave it 15 minutes on high.

Judge (slapping forehead repeatedly):  Were there any ... explosions or anything?

Me:  No, Your Honor.

Judge:  Well, how about the condition of the device when you pulled it out?  Uh, you did pull it out, didn't you?

Me:  Of course, Your Honor.  Obviously, I had to give it some time to cool down.  So, I looked at it about an hour later.

Judge:  And?

Me:  It had absolutely no signs of life.

Judge:  So, did you get a good night's sleep that night?

Me:  Not quite, Your Honor.

Judge:  And why "not quite?"

Me:  I was attempting to flee to Afghanistan to hide.  I had a cave reserved, but it is apparently impossible to book a commercial flight to Kabul these days.

Judge:  So, you destroyed the cell phone.

Me:  I'm afraid not, Your Honor.  At 7 a.m. the next morning, the darn thing paged me again.

Judge:  So, after submerging your cell phone in soapy water for more than an hour, attempting to grind it up in the disposal, and baking it for 15 minutes in the microwave, you still couldn't break it?

Me:  I'm afraid not, Your Honor.

Judge:  Since the device was not actually harmed, and since you really didn't get out of any work, I have to drop the charges.  But if I were allowed to find you guilty of gross criminal incompetence, I would send you away for life.

Me:  Let's not dismiss that last option too hastily, Your Honor.  Would I have to carry a cell phone in prison?