Phone Repair Travails
So on Monday I got a disassembled entertainment center off Craigslist. Finding the locale was easy (compared to the last time I used Craigslist and got lost for ninety minutes) and I learned I could fold down the backseat of our Focus to make more room. When we got it home I put the top on the bottom, proceeded to break through one of the pieces when another part flipped, and lose the bottom part of the door attachment (unrealized till it was fully assembled). This thing was big, 6' x 5' and obviously heavy, and by the end rather unsteady. It is now a bookcase. But during the assembly my LG Chocolate Touch was in my back pocket and I fell or sat down hard at some point and cracked the screen. D:
The touch part still worked, my mp3 player and ringer worked, my voice dial worked, but I couldn't see anything. This was rather upsetting, though I was a bit numb by the end since the entertainment center had also been a disappointment. And I was quite tired by that point, too. (It was 12:30 am, we'd got it at 9pm.) I looked up how to fix it, which was a common enough problem for there to be a how-to with pics and the replacement screen was only $10 on ebay. But if it didn't work I needed to find out what my options with Verizon were. Apparently, they are very few.
My mom and bro lost their AT&T phones and got go phones for a bit, but Verizon won't do that. They suggest buying a whole new phone or adding a line =| Dicks. I have an upgrade in about a month and a half but that's no help. So I waited for the part.
Fixed the screen yesterday but then the ringer/mp3 player/external speaker wouldn't work. Vibrate's fine but I at least need a working, audible alarm clock. Realized that one screw was in the wrong hole, but couldn't get it out. Without the screw on the outside the speaker conductor wasn't meeting its complementary part and the signal/current wasn't making it though. And I had stripped the tiny, tiny, tiny screw. So. Went to Home Depot, got a precision screwdriver set, but they didn't have any tiny, tiny, tiny screws. Sent me to Radio Shack. Again, no dice. Didn't have time to go out and get a glasses repair kit, so waited till this afternoon to resume attempting repairs.
Finally got the screw out with some toenail clippers after trying to superglue it to my tiny screwdriver wouldn't work. I had realized I could just use some screws from old phones lying about and replaced the stripped screw. And success! It took me several hours over two days and too much driving and searching the house for tools, but I've got a functional phone again. I'm getting the insurance next time (to be fair, I've been really good with phones before, but this was too frustrating. Glad to know I can repair electronics sometimes, though.) Definitely not putting together another entertainment center without instructions and placing my phone far, far away.
So that's what I've been up to :)