It's A Wash

TigerBlog put the clothes in the washing machine and then spent a half hour looking for his phone. When the laundry was done, he went to put the clothes in the dryer - and there was his cell phone, which had been the pocket of his pants.

For those who don't know, putting a cell phone into the laundry - even on warm water and with a low water setting - isn't exactly a good idea if you want the phone to work ever again.

TB knows of people who have had their phones in their pockets when they jumped into swimming pools and the ocean and such. Those aren't good ideas either.

It was actually sort of fun to be without a phone for a little while, to have moments of being unreachable. It didn't last long, of course, as he was able to replace his phone quickly.

The only problem is that all of his contacts (and pictures - people appear to have long ago replaced carrying pictures of their kids in their wallets with pictures of their kids on their phones) were gone, and so he was left with having to start from scratch in terms of replacing all of those telephone numbers.

TigerBlog has a tremendous memory for many things, including birthdays, scores and details of games from long ago and telephone numbers (and "The Cat In The Hat," which TB memorized cover-to-cover from reading to TigerBlog Jr. so many times when he was little; every now and then, TB still likes to recite the book to make sure he still can). He's never had an address book or rolodex, since he's simply been able to remember every number and date he's needed.

He's still good on the birthdays and the scores and Dr. Seuss, but he's severely lacking in the phone numbers. This is due to the fact that everything is saved under contacts, which means that people no longer have to enter the phone number when making a call.

TB has tried to rebuild his contacts list, and some of them were easy. During the football game against Lafayette Saturday, though, he got a few texts and calls from numbers that he didn't easily recognize, and he either had to try to piece together who it was from the information on the text or, in some cases, reply with the dreaded "who is this?" response.

It'll be awhile before all of the contacts are back in place, but TB is well on the way to fixing the problem.

The moral of the story is, of course, don't put your cell phone in the laundry. Another moral is that just because you washed your cell phone and lost all your contacts doesn't mean that things won't be better in a few days.

Like at Princeton athletics, for instance.

The Tiger equivalent of putting the phone in the laundry was last weekend's 4-9-2 combined record by all of Princeton's teams.

The getting a new phone and replacing all your contacts was this weekend.

Princeton competed in men's and women's soccer, field hockey, football, sprint football, men's water polo and women's cross country from Friday to Sunday.

Combine record? How about 8-1, not including women's cross country, which took first place in the HYP meet.

Men's soccer went 2-0 at its invitational as Antoine Hoppenot scored four goals in the two games. Women's soccer opened its Ivy League season with a 1-0 win at Yale (not to get ahead of anything here, but every year since 2002, Princeton has advanced to the NCAA tournament in years it has beaten Yale and has not advanced to the NCAA tournament in years it has not beaten Yale).

The field hockey team continued to roll through the league, topping Yale 7-0. Princeton is now 2-0 in the league having outscored its two opponents 16-1; the Tigers, ranked fourth, host No. 2 Maryland tomorrow at 6 at Class of 1952 Stadium.

The men's water polo team defeated Johns Hopkins, Navy and George Washington in a 3-0 weekend.

The football team, now a highly entertaining 1-1, got Bob Surace his first win when Jordan Culbreath scored in the second OT for a 36-33 win over Lafayette.

The lone loss came in sprint football, where Princeton fell 33-12 to Cornell. This year's 21-point loss to the Big Red came after the Tigers lost by 44 a year ago to Cornell; Princeton lost by 36 in Week 1 to Penn after losing twice by margins of 50 and 72 a year ago to the Quakers.

Could there be a win in the next two weeks for sprint football, who hosts the two newest programs, Mansfield and Post, on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium the next two Fridays?

Anyway, an 8-1 weekend is a pretty good bounce back from going 4-9-2 a week earlier.

If your last week wasn't the best - say you put your phone in the washing machine or something - there's always another one on the way.