Skewered: Apple, nut and almond kernel

A few days before Christmas, the stress was perfect: after a few less serious blunders in the kitchen, household and on the street, I thought the temporary climax of the disaster was that I had washed my dear husband's wallet along with his jeans - at least in the wool wash cycle without pre-rinsing. In return, the chaste housewife even gave it a tumble, which meant that some of the money cards only survived in part. Well, well done, money laundering for beginners. My husband enjoyed it. And I got him a Christmas present: a new wallet.

Even at this point, sending Christmas cards was out of the question. But it got even worse. On one particularly ugly day, it took me a very long time to find time to go to the bathroom. And as I was trying to make myself comfortable there, my cell phone plopped out of the back pocket of my festive trousers straight into the orcus. In a flash, I went under the fishermen, and lo and behold, my cell phone looked undamaged. Nevertheless, I decided to have it professionally dried. But where you used to be able to open the cell phone, take out the battery and dry the whole thing out, today - at least with the Apple phone - there is only a small drawer with the SIM card. That's it.

Hoarfrost on the display

Two hours after the incident, my phone suddenly showed four wintery foggy corners and the message: "Your iPhone is not equipped for this function." Every time I used it. A short time later, the display was only readable at a 110-degree angle under a ceiling spotlight. A good friend advised me to be patient, so I deposited the piece of crap on our kitchen table and started baking gingerbread for our little crispy house. Just as I had finished fretting over the broken gingerbread, my cell phone began to emit unfamiliar beeps. A dying man's groan, I thought. I should have been wrong.

Suddenly, the watered ringtone turned into a pre-Christmas helper - and started ringing through my entire phone list on its own. After all, a sonorous gentleman's voice informed me who had just called: my sister in faraway Milan, our family doctor, my husband's cousin's husband and our bank. My professor from university, our garage, a long-lost girlfriend and the hairdresser. Help! As I didn't have a hammer to hand, I simply ripped the SIM card out of the cursed device, because no amount of input could stop the mischief.

From necessity to virtue

The next day, I hardly dared to turn my cell phone back on. In retrospect, however, the whole incident turned out to be practical, as I was able to claim, somewhat embarrassed, to the many people who called me back that I had just wanted to wish them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The surprise was (mostly) great, the joy over the pre-Christmas warm-up contacts (mostly) mutual and the Christmas cards (all of them) finished in one fell swoop.

And I already knew what 2013 would bring me: a new cell phone. Happy New Year!