Improper Bathroom Behavior, Stolen iPhones, and A Lesson on Little Old Ladies

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have heard me ranting and raving a week or two ago all about how my iPhone was stolen and it was going to cost me a whopping $300 bucks to ‘upgrade’ it. (Translation: replace it because I was a dummy.)

If you don’t follow me on Twitter… sheesh WTHeck are you waiting for?

OK, so here’s the story.  I decided one bright and shiny Saturday morning that since the fair was in town, it was the perfect day and way to exhaust my kids and get a little extra me time later on.

No.  Wait.  That’s not right.

Ok, really I just decided it was the perfect excuse to eat a turkey leg and gorge on Carni pizza, so there!  Any idea why junk food always tastes better at the fair?  I think they sprinkle voo-doo magic in it… fair food rocks! Oooh… be still my rumbling tummy…

But I digress.

So there we were, having a blast, wandering around the place, riding rides and generally indulging ourselves.  Then I got the bright idea to visit the ‘show barn’ where they keep all the animals and run the judging contests.  I figured there’d be a REAL bathroom in there, rather than those pee-eww porta-potties, and boy did I have to go! (Remember, junk food=thirsty=LOTS of sweet tea=bladder in danger of bursting!)

Score!

I was totally right and headed off to do my business in a nice semi-fresh smelling ladies room with real toilets rather than coffin-like boxes set above putrid holes in the ground.

Lessons I learned whilst doing my business in said ladies room:

1. Restrooms in large barns with farm animals… aren’t much better than a porta-potty.  Nor do they smell like roses.
2. Women are slobs. I mean really.  I thought boys were the slobs, but they ain’t got nuthin ’ on the female gender when it comes to public potties.
3. Thinking your iPhone is safe on your belt loop while you do your business is wishful thinking. You’re lucky if it doesn’t fall in the toilet.  Or fall on the floor the next stall over, leaving it wide open to ‘FKS- finders keepers syndrome’ common to thieving elderly ladies while you rush to finish your business and pull your pants up shouting “No! Don’t touch it!” so you can scrambleoutofthereandgetitback!  ::gasp::
4. Never place said iPhone on the rail while doing your business.  It’s highly likely you’ll walk out without it because you’re high on farm animal and bathroom fumes and the next elderly lady after you steal’s it because she’s high on the same said farm animal and bathroom fumes AND is suffering from FKS to boot.  Refresher: FKS=Finder Keepers Syndrome.
5. When said iPhone is stolen… don’t count on the overall ‘elderly element’ of the crowd to mean they aren’t a bunch of thieving iPhone highjackers.  I mean seriously, you don’t think the ‘elderly’ crowd likes to rock out to an iPod?  I beg to differ!  If they didn’t my iPhone wouldn’t have been stolen!

What this means to all of you entrepreneurs like me who check your email and Twitter and Paypal and Clickbank and, and… STUFF from your iPhone?  The thieving elderly jackals who stole it can now get all in your business and see what you’ve been up to, and go digging around in your iPhone ‘closet’ as it were.  Even impersonate you if they want until you find a pay phone and get that sucker shut DOWN.

What you can do to prevent this catastrophe from ever happening to you?

1. Don’t use the bathroom at the fair.  Like ever.
2. If you can’t help yourself, use the buddy system.  Maybe one of you will be a little less high on farm animal and bathroom fumes, and might just walk out with your iPhone still in place.
3. If you don’t have a buddy, make sure you password protect that little bugger.  It’s darn frustrating to the thieving elderly when they can’t open your iPhone and play Solitaire.  Or listen to Twisted Metal.  They might just decide to do the right thing and turn it in. Yeah right.
4. Finally?  Investigate personal insurance options and install some sort of tracking feature on the darn thing.  MobileMe I hear is a semi-effective option, or you can try iHound. Then perhaps you can track the elderly thief or at the very least file a claim and replace your baby… I mean iPhone without crying in pain because it’s hurting your wallet.

In the meantime, I’m investigating creating an application that allows you to remotely self-destruct your iPhone in the event that it gets stolen by elderly ladies or anyone else for that matter.  I’m thinking a nice virus that splats “SUCKA!” across the screen would give me a great feeling of satisfaction and peace of mind.  Let me know if you’d like to JV with me on this, I think it could be huge.

Oh and moral of the story?

Avoid taking your iPhone to the fair altogether.  You’ll thank me later.

Warm regards,

AKA k0zm0zs0ul

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Tagged as: blogger, business, copywriter, Cori Padgett, elderly ladies, fair, ghostblogger, ghostwriter, ihound, iphone, k0zm0zs0ul, mobileme, porta-potty, stolen, thieves, write syntax