The Pedometer

Two Christmases ago I gave each daughter a cheap pedometer. They are young adults yet love more than anything to have cool little stuff in their stockings - it has always been their Christmas day highlight. Seven months later, in July 07, I wanted to use one. Neither daughter could find hers. Neither daughter had used hers.

Fast forward about a year, and by this time we have all lost any mental contact with any pedometers. The evening Sunny was digging a nest to lay eggs, rather than fight mosquitoes throughout the evening while waiting to see if she were going to lay, I got an idea! She was just outside daughter B's bedroom window, and I could just go in there, look out the window and check her status. Wrong!

You've heard of path houses, haven't you? Those people who collect so much stuff, boxes of nothing, boxes that have never been opened, thousands of telephone insulators, old cereal boxes, that kind of stuff? And they have it all sitting around their house, on top of tables, obliterating furniture, making doors impossible to close and such and leaving only a narrow path for navigating the rooms? Well, that was almost the state of my daughter's room. I couldn't even get to the window. Here are some examples of true path houses:

http://www.idexter.com/the_house/01_den.html

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=e9744d33e932f0de0ec1d35d23523a44&threadid=830487&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

First I had to kick back piles of clothes, move 2 guitars, remove a broken floor lamp that had the top half dangling on her bed, move a desk chair which caused another pile of clothes and stuff (which were precarious to begin with) to fall in my path, etc. When I finally reached the window it was dark and I couldn't even see Sunny by shining a flashlight out the window.

But I digress. In the midst of reaching the window I spied the pedometer, lying lonely and useless under a pile of something. It still worked! I clipped it on! It was fun!

I wore it, even to work, for 2 days, making sure to take extra steps here and there, marveling at how it could be possible that I took more steps in 50 minutes getting ready for work (and going outside with Eddie and the turtles) than I did during the entire 9 hours I was at work! I became determined to change that.

On the 3rd day I was moving more, going down to other offices more, walking further from my car, etc. Then I went to the bathroom. I forgot I had it clipped on, and somehow the act of unbuttoning/unzipping made the pedometer fly off my pants. I was in the "big stall", the one that a wheel chair could pop wheelies in because it's the size of a small bedroom. In other words, plenty of safe space for the pedometer to fall. But no. It chose to fall in the toilet, an area about 1/40th the size of the stall.

I watched as it rocked down in slow motion, sinking all the way until is was partially hidden by the throat at the depths of the toilet bowl. Then I reached in and got it. Yes, I did, I reached down into a public toilet with my bare hand to retrieve a $4 pedometer!

I dabbed it with wads of toilet paper, wrapped it in a paper towel after washing my hands and arm for about 20 minutes, and carried it back to my office. The LCD screen was blank. Little bubbles of water kept oozing out of unseen crevices as I shook it, squeezed it, and blew on it. Water came out of the crease around the LCD screen, around the crease where the 3 rubber operating buttons were, out of the perimeter crease where the front and back were stuck together.

Then I opened the battery compartment and removed the battery. It was wet. Inside, where the battery sits, was wet. I kept dabbing. I found a tiny screwdriver and removed the 2 screws that appeared to be holding the front and back together. They weren't. I couldn't pry that thing apart, but I blew forcefully in the bit of wedged area where I could lift it up a bit. Toilet water spat out on my desk.

After letting the battery and compartment air dry I put the battery back in. Still no LCD. I waited... still nothing. I pronounced it dead and threw it away.

Later I was telling a co-worker about it and she wanted to see it. I got it out of the waste basket and the LCD was on! I shook it lightly, simulating a gait, and it counted! I clipped it back on and it still works today!

And the broken lamp? It wasn't actually broken, the metal base for the bulb had worked its way out of the pole. I worked on it a bit and got it fixed. My daughter did thank me the next day for fixing her beloved lamp. I didn't say a word about her pedometer. I'm keeping it.