"Da-ad. Um, if I tell you something, would you, um ... promise not to tell Mom?"
That's the kind of question you don't want to get, especially when you're in the middle of watching a game on TV.
I turned and raised an eyebrow.
The tale quickly poured out. I could almost picture it in my mind as a chain of events in a sitcom:
The 14-year-old girl, following a long phone call, absent-mindedly drops her cell phone into a clothes basket.
Cut to two hours later. She carries the clothes basket into the basement. She doesn't see the cell phone, which is covered by flip-flops. She takes out the flip-flops and dumps everything else into the washing machine.
Then, somewhere among the wash cycle, the fabric softener and the spin dry, it happens the death of a cell phone. The little LCD display on the cell phone slowly flickers and goes dark, like Tinker Bell in "Peter Pan."
Then, as the sitcom plays out, the befuddled Dad takes pity on his daughter and attempts to solve the problem before Mom gets home.
Hanging it up
I took the small Ericcson phone, held it up to my ear and shook it, listening for any water. Nothing.
I popped off the battery, and tried drying it out.
Swapping batteries with one of the other three identical phones that came as part of our four-phone Cingular service package was the next step.
Didn't work. After a half hour of pushing buttons and swapping batteries, I gave up.
Mom would have to be told. But my daughter didn't have to worry.
The phone cost only a buck. It was part of a promotional deal for getting service for four cell phones. My wife and I realized the trauma of losing a cell phone was much worse punishment to an adolescent girl than anything we could deal out.
We decided to take the phone down to the friendly folks at the service office. They tinkered with it, but they couldn't bring it back to life. It would cost $159 to replace it. We decided to look around to see what was available.
Disposability
I started hunting on the Internet. The last time I looked for phones, about a year ago, the new big thing was the ability to get access to the Internet and your e-mail.
I quickly learned that cell phones may soon be going the way of ink pens, razors, cameras and cigarette lighters you'll soon see disposable phones.
At least three companies hope to offer phones for under $30 that could be tossed after a short period of use.
Realizing I might be in the target market for such a device (my daughters will still live at home for several more years), I looked into it.
Dieceland Technologies (www.dtcproducts.com) is developing the "Phone-Card-Phone," which it calls the world's first disposable cell phone. It looks like a playing card with a number pad and an earbuds and microphone connection.
The phone, which was invented by a New Jersey woman, Randi Altschul, is expected to be made cheaply.
That's because it uses metallic ink etched into a type of paper to form the phone's circuit board. The use of metallic ink and paper helps to create a "superthin" phone that's about as wide as three credit cards.
Other companies coming out with disposable phone prototypes are Telespree and Hop-On Wireless Inc.
Telespree is working with IDEO, an innovation/design company, (www.ideo.com /studies/telespree.htm) on a one-button, voice-driven cell phone that comes in multiple colors and looks like something you might find in a child's toy box.
Hop-On Wireless (www.hop -on.com/jpjv.html) has hooked up with Universal Studios to launch a disposable cell phone tied to "Jurassic Park III." The phone was to be available for a limited time as an insert in the movie's DVDs and videocassettes.
Hop-On's phone has two buttons. You press the CALL button, then say the number to make your call. To hang up, you press the END button. It also offers directory assistance.
All of the companies plan to market their disposable phones sort of like a phone calling card. When you buy the phone, it comes with a certain amount of minutes.
Once you use up the minutes (or you accidentally put it in the washer), you toss out the phone and get another. (You can also recycle it and get a new activation card with Telespree.) And there are no long-term phone contracts.
The promotional material indicated the costs were to range from $10 to $40 per phone.
So far, disposable phones are still in the prototype stage. Most of the write-ups for the phones said they should be available early this year.
The main drawbacks are that they are set up to only make calls, not receive them.
Drying out
We were sitting in a restaurant, discussing how to replace our drowned phone. There was some talk of going on eBay.com to see if we could find a cheap replacement.
We laughed again about the irony of it going through the washer.
"The same thing happened to my friend Corey," one of my daughters said. "After about a month, it finally dried out and started working again."
"Huh?" I said, looking over at my wife, who was stunned at the news. "What happened to our old phone?"
It's gone, she said. After the phone tech couldn't fix it, she just left it with him.
I didn't promise not to tell.
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