1.
"I was at a brewery with a group of college friends, looking at a super awkward picture of my friend Maria on my phone. I was laughing and trying to zoom in and screenshot the face to show my friends. As I screenshotted, my phone slipped from my hands and directly into my half-full cup of beer. Since the cup was clear, you could see the zoomed-in picture peering out from inside the cup. A few seconds of laughter ensued before I remembered to grab my phone from my beer."
—Isa D., Austin, TX
2.
"Got a job offer over the phone. Was in shock and dropped my phone on the sidewalk. Future boss was still on the phone."
—Ally M., Washington, D.C.
3.
"One night my ex-girlfriend and I had a few too many. I woke up the next day to find that she drunkenly decided to pee all over both our iPhones as well as her laptop. I knew it wasn't me because the back of the chair and floor were dry, as well as the ceiling, so no water leaked in either. She managed to get her phone dry, but mine was toast."
—Craig S., Bloomington, IN
4.
"I went on a coaster with my phone, debit card, and sunglasses in my pocket. (I swear that I've done it 100 times before, and it has always been totally fine.) This time, though, I got off the ride and immediately realized all my shit was missing. I always assumed that if something fell out in the ride, it would get caught by the nets you see everywhere. Apparently, the nets are only to stop things from falling on peoples' heads. If your phone were to fall out over, say, decorative rock slabs, it would not be caught; it would be shattered on the granite. That's where the poor Dorney Park worker would find it after closing, right next to your COMPLETELY UNSCATHED, $10 sunglasses and debit card."
—Emily S., Lopatcong, NJ
5.
"Threw phone at wall after frustration over phone not charging. Accidentally hit TV instead, resulting in shattering both TV and phone."
—Kerri L., New York, NY
6.
"I was on a long bike ride with my family in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. I was filming everyone and Instagramming it, all while steering with one hand. My mother chastised me, but I kept acting like a smart ass. I slowed down to get a shot of all four of them riding together and ended up dropping the phone then rolling over it with my bike. What made it worse was the OTHER family riding by that witnessed the whole thing."
—Johanna S., Silver Spring, MD
7.
"I went through a phase where I had a lot of colored lights in my room for a 'moody effect.' The problem was that I didn't understand wattage, and would often put extremely powerful bulbs into tiny little desk lamps just because they were red. One day, I left my phone on my desk, turned the lamp on, and then went to cook some really delicious creamy mac 'n' cheese in which I used whipping cream as the milk. I digress, but it was SO good. Anyway, when I came back, my phone had literally been scorched so bad from the heat of the lamp that there was a small puddle of plastic around it. I took it the repair shop and they actually laughed at me and said they had never seen anything like it before."
—Spencer B., Portland, OR
8.
"Fell out the front pocket of my chef coat into a five-gallon bucket of chicken stock."
—Ben N., Louisville, KY
9.
"Near the end of a long night, I broke my phone just to prove a point. Naturally, there had been numerous beverages imbibed beforehand, and as I'm wont to do in such a state, I got in a 'debate' with a friend over whose brand of cell phone was better. We traded a number of rounds of somewhat articulate points, but ultimately I took on the burden of proof. I decided that the most definitive sign of a phone's superiority was its durability. To demonstrate that, I took my phone out of my pocket and promptly dropped it. On the sidewalk. As I heard the shatter, I garbled out, 'Oh noo,' my sigh of defeat."
—Josh F., Bainbridge Island, WA
10.
"I was leaving my office clutching my first smartphone ever, which was a big deal for me because I was sort of late to the smartphone game and this thing was my everything. I got in my building's elevator and a guy from my floor walked in. We both wanted nothing more than to ignore each other, but one of us felt obligated to start small-talking, and we awkwardly chatted about boring things for 30 seconds.
"After a lifetime, the doors opened in the lobby. I remembered that normal people say good-bye when they part ways, so as an afterthought, I waved my hand (the hand holding my phone) and quacked, 'BYE!' We both watched as my phone flew in a slow-motion arc, landing face down on the sidewalk."
—Kristin R., New Canaan, CT
11.
"Drowned in vodka at Coachella in my fanny pack because my 'sunscreen bottle' (aka flask) wasn't sealed."
—Kira J., Seattle, WA
12.
"Pedicure incident: My phone fell right into the water below."
—Courtney K., San Francisco, CA
13.
"I was using earbuds to call my mother while on my way to obtain my graduation cap and gown. A mere two minutes after bragging to her about my admirable collegiate responsibility — the fact that, despite hoards of friends smashing their phones into oblivion when drunk, mine was still in pristine condition — tragedy struck. I hung up, promptly tripped over a sidewalk on 7th Street (I remember the exact spot), and down went the phone.
"The earbud cable caught it, but also acted as a slingshot of sorts, flipping the phone up and over and back down hard enough to disconnect and hit the pavement, shattering the screen and my ill-timed hubris. If I had simply dropped it sans cable, perhaps it would have been a mere scratch, but because of the slingshot effect of the cord, it was flung towards the ground at lightspeed and smashed beyond recognition.
"Happy graduation to me!"
—Joe P., Rockland, NY
14.
"I had a phone get trampled on at Oktoberfest in Munich by one of the beer cart horses. Prost."
—Drew H., Bloomington, IN
15.
"Boob sweat."
—Sarah B., Los Angeles, CA
OK, fine. Here's ONE toilet story, but only because it's horrific:
16.
"My wife borrowed a friend's brand new phone to use in a dark Port-a-John at an outdoor Dan Deacon show in Bushwick. It fell in, of course, and she instinctively went in elbow deep to retrieve it. We put her in the shower in her sweater to minimize contamination, then bought an industrial size Purell bottle from a bodega before she could even put the phone in a bag — but it saved us $200 in replacement fees! When we went to replace it, the dudes were like, 'Why is it blue?' It took me forever to figure out how to say 'hand sanitizer' in Spanish."
—Jesse S., Brooklyn, NY
Time for a new phone? Get the all-new Samsung Galaxy S7, available now at Best Buy.
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