Over the holiday weekend we had a chance to pick a winner for my vacation giveaway. We offered $25 to the best BlackBerry withdrawal story submitted in the comments. To everybody who did not win I wish you better luck next time!
The winner is SteveS with the following story:
I was on my honeymoon in Mexico and would make up stories to get my wife to leave the room for a few min. the only reason i wanted her to leave the room was so that i could turn on my blackberry bold to check my emails. i had to run to the safe to unlock it and wait for it to boot(we know how long that takes). then to make matters worse when we got back to America i had a 300 bill because of roaming charges in Mexico.
Runners up were:
- Scarlet: On February 1, 2008 I proudly walked out of the ATT store after upgrading my Pearl to a Curve 8310. The next day my husband and I were traveling out of town. Since he was driving I used the time to set up my Curve. My Curve was in my hand, my old Pearl, my husband’s Curve, (I had just bought him in December) and my 7290 issued by my employer were all in my lap. We were using TelNav on my Curve for directions and were cruising down the road when I glanced up from my Curve to see a truck stop in front of us. My husband yelled as we hit it at 60mph, flipped three times then slid upside down on the roof before stopping. We were upside down when we stopped moving, hanging by our seatbelts. When we were taken out of the car I was in severe pain. As we were waiting to be airlifted people were gathering our personal belongings. I was screaming in pain and asked them to find my BB and they brought one, and then another and another until they located all of them. I can’t imagine what they thought. When we arrived at the trauma unit my left hand was black they asked what was I doing when we crashed. My family all responded “HOLDING HER BLACKBERRY”! (I had lost 3 units of blood internally and am still recovering). All our blackberries were ruined. The day I got out of the hospital I went to ATT to get new Curves. Since there was no insurance on them and we had just signed new 2 year contracts I could not get either of our blackberries replaced without paying full price. Even being on pain pills did not help the pain of losing my precious Curve. Since I could do nothing but lie in bed I started calling ATT daily, trying to get someone to help me. It was pure torture to be without my Curve by my side. Finally one day I reached someone who said “I can get you 2 Curves for $99 each and a $100 rebate if you agree to another 2-year contract”. That was not a problem, for that price I would have signed away my next grandchild! (Not really, but I would have considered it briefly) My Curve is once again forever by my side.
- Alb123: I purchased my first BlackBerry in September 08 because I became very ill with liver disease and I knew I’d be spending a lot of time in the hospital. I knew I’d need some way to stay connected or I’d lose my mind. The hospital did have free wifi, so I kept my laptop bedside, but of course they had all sorts of filters on their public connection….
Due to the frequency and lengths of my stays in the hospital, I became very well known among the entire staff on two floors in the hospital. Of course, all my doctors and nurses constantly saw me on my BlackBerry and/or laptop morning, noon and night.
Of course, it was just a matter of time before doctors and nurses started popping in to ask me BlackBerry specific questions. Some had already purchased a device and just didn’t know how to get the most out of it. Others were so impressed by the capabilities that I would show them on mine that there were a few who went out and purchased a device and I helped them set theirs up.
On one trip to the E.R., by ambulance, I forgot my BlackBerry at home. Upon admission – the intake administrators asked for my device (I had shown them how to look up my current medication list as it changed often and other pertinent information regarding my medical health). As I was in an extreme state, they had to admit me based on the previous visits medication information. When I finally woke up in my bedroom, some 5 hours later, my BlackBerry was sitting in its docking cradle charging away. I was shocked because I knew I hadn’t brought the device with me – but I was confused due to my poor health at the time. It turns out, a young nurse drove to my house on her lunch break to get my BlackBerry because she “knew I would go nuts without it!” Thank god I lived so close to the hospital!
I finally had a liver transplant after months of being sick. When I woke up in my regular room (after 1 day in post-op ICU) I had my BlackBerry headphones on and the Media Player was boppin’ away on shuffle…I didn’t remember putting it on, but I was on a lot of meds…I found out later that my doctor was the one to launch the media app and put on my headphones…He knew I had over 3000 songs on the microSD card and I guess it had been playing for hours…
I think the staff considered me quite a ‘Berry addict! LOL