Use Protection

By Heather

by Heather

About a year ago, my 11-month old son grabbed my cell phone from my hand, slurped it juicily in his mouth, and then threw it to the floor. It’s hard to say which part of the event caused my phone to keel over and die, but the combination was lethal. My cell phone limped on for the next couple weeks, but without a screen, it was pretty useless to me.

Around the same time, my camera (new from Christmas) was rendered worthless as a result of being toted around, unprotected, in the bottom of my purse. I like to think that my purse is not especially filthy, but it does have the detritus (e.g., sand and crumbs) so typical in the mommy set. Anyhoo, the grit from my purse met the lens of my camera and it was ugly.

Both of those sad stories have happy endings. Yay!

Lucky for me, the phone was due for an upgrade, so I didn’t feel toooo awful getting a new one. I made sure to get a protective hard-backed case to survive both slings and arrows as well as a screen protector to allow for easy clean-up of finger and face goo. The new phone has been dropped. A lot. And keeps on going.

Even luckier, the new camera was still under warrantee, so I was able to get a repair for free. That’s when I started carrying my camera in a little toddler sock to keep it safe and warm.

camera cozy

If you don’t have any toddler socks, you can make a sock just for the camera following these instructions from NotAnArtist. Or even spring $12 or so for a neoprene cozy. You’ll be glad you did.

By protecting my phone and camera, they continue to be safe to use and reliable when I need them. Taking better care of these oh-so-personal electronics also means I can keep them out of the waste stream (and save the cost of replacement too!).

To try to save wet or moist electronics, read my post from a few days ago.

Lessons learned: