Despite how much you may not enjoy getting thoroughly drenched during the Songkran festivities, a good towel is all it takes to make matters right. Hell, find a dry spot away from the water fights and Thailand’s hot tropical sun alone will quickly dry you off. Unfortunately, the same can not be said about your cellphone. And with that little marvel of technology being firmly affixed to almost everyone’s hip these days, the 1.3 million cellphone dealers at MBK are undoubtedly looking forward to a flood of business after this weekend’s festivities are over. The waterfall of baht soon headed there way is gonna make the amount of water thrown during Songkran look like a mere puddle.

No problemo. Every cloud has a silver lining. Even when it’s not a rain cloud at fault but some damn smiling Thai with a bucket of water instead. You may not be looking at having to replace your cellphone, not too mention having to upgrade for your bar boy’s phone too while you’re at it. There are options. And I won’t mention that ounce of prevention thingy ‘cuz ya know I’m just not one of those I Told You So kinda guys. But if the following doesn’t work for you, give me a call. Oh, wait . . .

When you discover you were not smart enough to leave your phone at home and it, along with you, got drenched, here’s what to do:

1. Turn It Off. Immediately. Seconds count, so do not delay. The quicker you turn off the device the better chance you’ll have of saving it. If you are unable to do so in the normal manner, pop out the phone’s battery to shut it down. If you can’t turn it off chances are that the water will soon cross a critical connection and short the device, meaning certain death. If you can turn it off, congratulations you went from a zero percent chance of recovery to a 50 percent chance of recovery.

2. Dry It Off. Use a towel, your shirt, or your boy du jour’s shirt. Just don’t get distracted from the task at hand if you go with the third option. Shake it like you would a Polaroid picture (the phone, not your boy). Do not use a hair dryer, or microwave oven to dry your phone, either will cause more damage than good.

3. Take Out The Sim Card. If you are at home or your hotel, us a vacuum cleaner to suck what moisture you can from where the Sim card was, as well as from any speaker holes and power ports. If you do not have access to a vacuum cleaner, your boy du jour is probably an expert at sucking on things; it’s worth a try.

4. Be Glad You Are Into Rice. DampRid sachets and silica packets work better, but are more difficult to lay your hands on quickly – and you’ve got about 10 minutes max – so either fill a bowl or zip lock bag with uncooked white rice and put your phone in it. Ignore the fact that putting your phone in that zip lock bag earlier in the day would have saved you from a lot of grief. Cover the bowl or seal the bag and keep your phone in it over night. If you are also saving your boy du jour’s phone, this is a handy excuse for why he has to spend the night with you.

It’s not a bad idea to place your phone in its bag or bowl on top of a TV (this doesn’t work with a TV mounted on the wall) . The heat from the TV will remove moisture from the phone. But it also gives your boy du jour an excuse to watch Thai sit-comes into the early hours of the morning. Saving your phone may not be worth that experience.

5. Wait. Leave your phone in the bowl or bag for a full 24 hours at a minimum. 48 hours is even better. Though that will give your boy du jour time to convince you to just buy him a new phone. Or you can use this time to reflect upon your stupidity, atone for your sins, or visit a local wat to make merit in the hope Buddha will intercede on your phone’s behalf.

6. Cross Your Fingers. After at least a full 24 hours have expired, cross your fingers, say a prayer, rub your favorite spot on your boy du jour for luck, and power up your phone. There’s no guarantee that it will come back to life – probably like with what you experienced rubbing your boy du jour’s spot to bring it back to life – but if it dried out and the logic board wasn’t damaged your odds are fairly good that your phone will be good as new. And a lot cleaner.

The above steps also work well on iPods, or when it is not the Songkran holiday and you drop your phone in the toilet while cruising a shopping mall’s restroom.

If your cellphone is beyond saving and you were lucky enough to have foolishly bought an iPhone, all’s not lost. This week Apple agreed to pay $53 million to settle a class action lawsuit filed by countless iPhone and iPod Touch owners who claim that the company failed to honor its own warranty. The consumer complaints all revolve around a tricky little strip of tape inside the phone known as the Liquid Contact Indicator (LCI) that’s supposed to indicate whether or not the device has sustained water damage. If so, the tape would turn pink. So for a long time, if an Apple employee opened up a malfunctioning iPhone or iPod and found pink tape, the warranty was immediately voided.

There’s only one problem with this patented magic tape that the geniuses at Apple used to determine which phones had been dropped in a toilet and which had simply stopped working. The tape didn’t work. The tape’s maker, 3M, has admitted humidity, and not water contact, could cause the color to turn pink. And nothing says humidity better than Thailand in April.

For many customers, this $53 million settlement will serve to compensate those in the class about $200, though it applies only to early iPhone models (original, 3G and 3Gs) and the first three generations of iPod Touches. If you have a newer device, you’ll still need to be careful when you’re texting in the restroom.

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