The Rice Cure

“I should be content 
to look at a mountain
 for what it is 
and not as a comment on my life.” – David Ignatow

No surprise that the forecast in Portland for our entire time here is, “”100% chance of rain.” (Being a weatherperson in Portland is really a pretty easy job!) Lots of indoor time until we need to invent errands to get out of the house. So on Thanksgiving Day, we definitely needed another brand of beer and more stuffing just in case, yes? Out to the car and as she got in, my daughter dropped her phone in a puddle. Oops. Not happy.

But it seemed to work okay until later that night, it didn’t. I remembered some urban legend about the rice cure that turns out to be true. Put the phone in a bowl and cover it with uncooked white rice and leave it overnight. The rice slowly absorbs the moisture and all the communication channels once again open. And guess what? It worked!

And so to the quote above. I should leave this “Hints from Heloise” tip alone, but I’m always making things like this do double-duty. Like how all the unshed tears and ungrieved grief in this country's history has waterlogged our circuits, stopped the signals between us from being clear and effective. So we are the collective grains of rice that need to absorb that moisture and get things moving again.

Or something like that. Meanwhile, if you drop your device in the water, now you know what to do.