Because I can’t seem to find my peace for very long without something coming along and kicking the ant hill.
Okay. For a while now, the case on my shit-class Samsung Galaxy (it’s the A class, and a low number, not a high one) has been sort of falling apart a little bit. It’s a cheap case, and I had dropped the phone a couple times in the past several months, so I didn’t think more of it. Just made a mental note that I needed a new case soon.
So I got the case, and it came in yesterday. So I go to put it on in the car before I even go anywhere. (I tend to have small items shipped to Whole Paycheck because it is almost literally a straight shot from the apartment and I don’t have to have Amazon come up this steep driveway just to give me tiny things. Rather save that for larger packages.) And I notice it doesn’t seem to want to snap all the way into place on one side.
So I go about my business, do some delivering but the pickings are a bit slim, because I wanted some food money. Had it been busier my greed would have kicked in and I might have pulled off an $80 day, but that’s not how things went down. (I just got another 40% off coupon in my buyer account for that same service, too. Really bad sign.) And I get back to my apartment and I’m dithering around and I go to pull up my phone screen and… it gets WEIRD on me. I had to poke at it a bit, worry at some buttons, to get it going. The really weird bit was that with the new case, the buttons had initially worked better so I’m already halfway on alert. Then I get into the menu and like half my apps are zerged. They’re the ones I moved to my mini SD card. Which I now cannot see in the system or access.
Okay…?
You get to the micro SD through a tiny side drawer, and I’m not sure what I was doing wrong but I got the case off and stuck something in the drawer-latch hole and… nada. And as I’ve got the case off I look at the back of the phone again.
“Is it supposed to be curved like that?”
I had sort of noticed that when I first changed cases and then it slipped my mind. I couldn’t remember what the stupid thing had looked like when I bought it; that happened in late ’21. Two years ago, basically.
But I’m starting to wonder if I can possibly just take the thing apart to look at where the drawer’s supposed to be, so I go look up YouTube videos for a how-to, and then…
…I realize the “curved” bit is right where the battery is supposed to be.
Holy fuck.
Did some more googling: Samsung phones are known for developing swollen battery.
FUCK.
Probably this was why the old case had been cracking, too: the drops I’d had started the process and the swelling kept it going. It was a shit case, honestly. An Otterbox will try to make allowances because they actually made an effort with the materials. Mine was. Though now I knew why it wasn’t going absolutely all the way on properly.
I’ve done some research. I don’t want another Galaxy. This was my third-ever one. The “good” Galaxy phones burn up battery too quickly. The bad ones… well. I have been complaining about the low RAM in this even-fails-as-a-doorstop device for two fucking years. The battery was, for once, the ONE demonstrably good thing about this piece of shit, and now that’s what’s failing me. We are not going to go this route again. It’s Pixels from now on or something of that ilk. I’ve heard good things about Pixels though. Also they’re one of the phones that supports my delivery app. I WILL be checking to make absolutely sure when I get the thing bought, but we’re proceeding on the assumption that that will work out. If it doesn’t, I’ll figure out something else.
Also, it’ll have 4GB RAM instead of half that much. Still not great, but 100% improvement from before.
Meanwhile, it is my understanding that swollen batteries are safe for phone use for a time, but that charging is dicey. I am at least not letting the battery drain down to zero, which is hilarious because my dad used to advise me to do that, but it turns out this type of battery is MORE likely to swell up if you do. (Is there ANYTHING my father has ever advised me to do which is actually fucking legitimate? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) But I worked out a basic fire-retarding precaution to take at night when I’m sleeping, and I just need to get this earned over the next couple of days. I literally have the phone and case in my shopping cart at Amazon. It’s an older model, but hopefully it checks out. I will clear it, or not, when it gets here.
…
So when I took that contact-center training class at Columbus State, one of the perks was they gave you a $250 stipend if you got employment as a result of taking the class. I did, earlier this year. Filled out the form I was supposed to fill out for the stipend. Got fuck-me games played with me by some doof who works in that department and who doesn’t seem to know his own departmental procedures. I tried. I was mostly polite. He finally sent the check. With my name misspelled. I sent it back with a letter advising him not to bother again.
Well, I finally got my mail from Elizabeth dating back to July. I thought, I bet there’s another check, because that ass [Columbus State doof] never listens to anything I’ve got to say. It was a bit like dealing with Matt, actually. I was right. There it was.
With a little note on it that advised it was only good for ninety days. It had been issued 02 August of this year.
Fuck it. I’ll try anyway. Worst they can tell me is “no.” So I set up the mobile deposit.
Well, so far Chime seems convinced it’ll go through. So the app told me after a few minutes. I don’t believe it, but we’ll see by the 15th. Meanwhile I need to get this fucking phone thing sorted so I don’t have to play so much catchup this month. Last month sucked ass.
If it turns out Chime was wrong and the thing bounces, I won’t even tell the doof. Moving on. Tired of the drama. Oh God fucking forbid, I asked for something that at the time I was entitled to. Y’all run get my smelling salts. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. One of these days you’ll actually NOT throw a conniption fit when I advocate for my rights, and I won’t know what to do with myself. It’s not like I’m nasty about it, at least at first. What the fuck. I don’t fucking know.
…
I spent today restringing some stretch bracelets and making more, and tomorrow if I get up early enough and have good light, I’ll list a bunch on Etsy. To think I was grumbling that I could not move my Etsy Seller app over to the SD card. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING.
Oh, and recently I had moved a bunch of files off my phone. Someone was looking out for this big fat idiot. There were more on the SD, and hopefully they weren’t wiped. I’ll find out if the new phone works out, and then I can use brute force to open the old one and see what’s what. I have what I call a mini-SD extender that looks exactly like a normal SD card but has a slot in it that you put the mini SD in. Lets you stick the mini SD into a normal SD slot for a computer to read it.
I don’t think the Pixels take mini SDs. I may subscribe to Pro on Flickr again just to have someplace to put things. At least I almost never use my phone as an mp3 player anymore. No way in hell will I have the space.
Sigh.
I’ll link to the stretch bracelets when I get them listed. At this point I can still catch up the month but I’d like to have something in reserve. If I can even keep it there. You know how us Poors are.
…
Okay. I have a question. Who the fuck’s visiting me from Canton, Georgia and Albuquerque, New Mexico? There are some other places I wonder about too, but those are regular customers. I have no idea why. If you’re on my Facebook, holler. It’s weirding me out a bit.
All righty then. I need to finish a bracelet and then it’s off to bed. But first, more root beer. Mmm. Root beer.