Around 9pm this evening, I stood on the platform of the 66th St. (Lincoln Center) station.  It had started storming, and I was still carrying my wet umbrella.  Elei and I had gone pottery-painting for one of my team events and afterwards we couldn't decide whether or not we wanted to watch a movie.  We were both pretty tired, so we had called it an early night.  I had said goodbye to her and she had headed across the street to catch the downtown train.

So there I was... standing on the platform.  I decided to listen to some voicemail, and simultaneously tried to rearrange my bag and umbrella while dialing the phone.  My cell phone slipped out of my hand, hit the ground, bounced a few times on the cement platform and rolled onto the subway tracks!

Oh no! I cried.  For a split moment, I entertained the thought of scrambling down to rescue my poor little phone, glowing faintly within the darkened pit.  There it sat, in the mud... and at any moment, a train would crush it!!!

Sanity then returned, and I just felt like kicking myself.  Ergh!  I walked over the station attendant and gave them a dejected half-smile, and said pathetically, "I dropped my phone onto the train tracks."  The attendant wasn't impressed with my predicament.  Instead, she acted like it happened quite regularly.

"It'll take 30 minutes to get it."

"Will it get smashed by the train?"

"Naah.  Where is it?"

I then pointed to it.  "Well, it may not get crushed, but it's certain to have some water damage.  Plus with all the humidity..."

Aaaaack!  My poor phone! 

To make a long story short(er)... she told me it would take 30-45 minutes.  I waited in the Barnes & Noble above, tormented by the thought of needing to buy a new phone or switch plans or switch numbers, losing the address book with everyone's numbers in it... it was, after all, my only phone and connection to the whole world!  I ran back to the station later, and my phone had been retrieved.  Two men in orange jackets and hard hats were my heroes!  The phone still worked!  It was just rather muddy, and one of the men told me to clean it with antiseptic before putting the phone to my ear.  I then remembered seeing the mice that would run around near the tracks, and all that foul water and mud... obviously I listened to him.  An hour later, after much wrangling with the phone case, cleaning and re-cleaning it... my dear cell phone is back in order! 

Lesson of the day: Mind the gap!