Blind Fucking Panic

For the past few days, I've noticed the battery performance in my 2-year old CrackBerry declining. In its salad days, I could charge it overnight, and have 3, 4 or even 5 days of email, browsing, writing, texting and chatting without worrying about the battery charge. However, this past week, the power meter would drop faster than a Columbus schoolgirl's knickers. I would charge during the day for an hour or so at work, and then later that night, after just a few random emails, it would be back around 50%.

So I charged it all night last night, before heading off on a business trip. During the meeting, I was getting the familiar vibration of the 50 or so emails popping in. No problems. However, after the meeting, I started using the phone on my drive back home, and after about 15 minutes of talking, it was down precipitously. Hmmmm. I was right in the middle of leaving a voice mail for a friend when it just shut down. Uh Oh. I took the back off, popped out the battery and then popped it back in. When it started up, it showed 40% life, worked for about 60 seconds, and then died again. Damn. I went through this exercise a couple of times, and was engulfed with panic. What if something was wrong with the CrackBerry itself? I wouldn't get back "home" until after business hours, and I'm heading out on a jet plane tomorrow to spend an extended weekend back in the motherland. Can anyone possibly imagine me without access to email, phone, internet and every other handy piece of information stored in my hipside oracle? For even a few minutes -- much less a holiday weekend back in Georgia?

I plugged in the car charger and started her up again. This time, everything worked and continued to work as long as it was plugged in. I called the ever helpful AT&T customer service, and after about 20 minutes, we determined that it's a "battery problem." Gee, thanks, tech wizards. The bad news? They don't carry the battery for my no longer produced phone. Nor do any of their stores. Nor does Best Buy. Nor does Circuit City. Nor does Radio Shack. Nor do any of the other dozen retail outlets I called, desperately trying to find a battery so my fucking device will work all weekend, without having to employ the world's longest USB power cable. Since I was driving, I didn't feel comfortable googling online battery merchants on a 2 inch screen. Fortunately, I found a helpful soul at work to do some googling for me, and one phone call, one $29 battery and one $25 expedited shipping charge later, I'll (*hopefully*) have a new battery first thing in the morning. If it gets lost before I get on the plane, or doesn't work, or doesn't solve the problem, look in the news for a string of murders between Maryland and Georgia on the newscasts.

The sad part is, I'm just a few weeks away from getting a new phone. The "you're eligible for an upgrade" light has gone on, but I'm anxiously awaiting the release (any fucking day now, AT&T and RIM) of the new Bold. This little gal has performed admirably for a while now, and I have no complaints, but sometimes ya just gotta get the new goodies, right?

Please work, new battery. Please work.