#674 When your laptop or cell phone is just about to die but you manage to run and plug it in before it completely shuts off

Neil Pasricha

save a life low batteryWarning beeps and flashing battery icons try hard to get your attention.

To me they’re a like death row prisoners being escorted down a dim hallway with green ceramic tiles and cinder brick walls. They’re in a baggy orange jumpsuit and shackles, hands behind their back, guards on both sides, just screaming for help before they’re strapped to the chair.

“Someone stop this insanity!”

Your heart aches but sometimes there’s nothing you can do. You’re in a bus on a long ride home or out at a restaurant. You forgot to plug them in before you left so you just stare helplessly as the juice zaps their veins, the lightbulb dims, and they go quiet and disappear into blackness. You sigh and toss them in your backpack or just hold their heavy, lifeless body in your hands, say some quiet words, and wipe away tears.

Other times you’re the pricey, hard-nosed attorney, filing a last minute appeal and rushing down to the prison with court-signed paperwork before someone flips the switch. You run into your apartment and plug them into the wall or borrow a friend’s car adapter at the last second. On moments like this, there is a celebration as the charge icon flashes on, flashes strong, and breathes in some fresh new life.

AWESOME!

save them

Photos from: here and here

34 thoughts to “#674 When your laptop or cell phone is just about to die but you manage to run and plug it in before it completely shuts off”

  2. I just had to comment and say that the phone in that picture is the first flip phone I had…from about 2001 I think. I thought I was so cool.

    1. shout out to my first phone too… I had forgotten what it looked like till I saw the photo!

      Now I have a smartphone and couldn’t imagine not having the basics, like COLOUR! I remember how much I hated that blasted always tinted blue screen…. positively archaic lol

  9. The most vivid recollection I have of this is when I got the last-minute-plug-in while taking a long conference call from my cell phone. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to save my phone in time, but I got the last minute save in the nick-of-time. Mere minutes later I was asked a question from my boss, and if my phone had died and I’d dropped off, I would’ve been in deep….

    But I wasn’t! The last-minute-plug-in saved my job! Hurrah!

  10. Definitely one of the best feelings ever! It makes you feel like you’re down to the wire and have to complete a task super-quickly. It’s an AWESOME rush when you make it in time! :)

  11. Wait….there’s a warning beep????
    My cell phone’s so old it still has a rotary dial, you pull a starter rope to turn it on, and the only way I know it’s running low is when the Briggs & Stratton engine begins to stall.

  12. I don’t think I have ever manged to charge my phone before its battery died out, since I’m always traveling when this happens. I would love for it to happen to me when I can actually do something about it!

  14. What about plugging the charger in, when you’re talking on the phone; since you cant see where your plugging it in, its awesome when you get it in the first time! instead of accidently sticking the charger into the side of your face! lol

  16. I also like when your phone dies and you don’t really care what your missing out on, and you are completely cut off.

  17. Read in a consumer website that it’s actually advisable to let you phone die once in a while (at least once a month) to prolong the overall life of the battery.

    But I do hate it when my phone dies at the middle of that ever-important phonecall.

  19. Especially true now that I have a smart phone (palm pre.) It takes about 5 to 10 minutes to come up if it dies.

    It doesn’t seem like a long time, but when you’re in the middle of some ULTRA JUICY GOSSIP… makes me wanna throw it across the room.

  21. Brilliant analogy!
    And fyi, this is pretty much exactly how I felt right before my prayers were answered, discovering Awesomeland!
    Thank you AGAIN:D

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  26. Hah I remember my first fone was the one in the pic back in 6 grade when my parents Thot I was irresponsible but I ended up losing it …. So I guess that’s why I’m sittin here in 9 grade barely with an iPod

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