Shattered

Evi dropped her iPhone this week. Shattered the glass. At least she did the smart thing by immediately texting me the news while I was at work, so I could get all my facepalming and swearing done at the office. You know, for efficiency.

My wife is one of the most driven, intelligent people I know, but holy crap she’s good at breaking shit. The first birthday present I ever bought her was an iPad, and I don’t think the poor thing made it a year. At the time, her apartment in New York City had wood floors, and when she was done using the tablet, she’d literally throw it under her bed.

“What the hell are you doing?!?” I exclaimed the first time I caught her. “That’s an expensive device! You have to be careful with it!”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” she replied as she turned off the light to go to sleep.

I immediately grabbed my phone and ordered her a case on Amazon. A few months later, Evi, not to be deterred, took it out of the case on one of her tours (she owns a tour business in NYC) and promptly dropped it, shattering the lower part of the screen.

“Jesus,” I said when she showed it to me. “Why did you take it out of the case?”

“It was too bulky.”

“I don’t care! Leave it in the case!”

A few weeks later, I noticed new cracks on the top of her screen. “Evi, did you–?”

“YES, I TOOK IT OUT OF THE CASE AND DROPPED IT AGAIN.”

“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

“IT’S APPLE’S FAULT! THEY MAKE THEM EASY TO BREAK!”

I sighed and decided I better get the damn iPad repaired before she found a way to set fire to it. However, in an act I can only guess was in mercy to the tablet itself, the Universe had a thief steal it from her when she left it on a bench in Battery Park.

“I’m not buying you another one,” I said when I found out.

I’ve known her for almost four years now, and in that time she’s:

1. Dropped a cell phone in the Hudson River.
2. Ruined countless iPhone and Android charging cables.
3. Destroyed said iPad.
4. Vacuumed up my MacBook USB-C charging cable. We had to unwrap it from the cylindrical spinning thing underneath the vacuum cleaner.
5. Broken the screen on the baby monitor.
6. Now cracked her iPhone screen.
7. Managed a few other miscellaneous accidents that I won’t mention here, to protect her from further embarrassment, like backing our minivan into my dad’s Honda Pilot.
8. Whoops.

The crazy thing is, I knew about her propensity for accidents when I bought her that iPhone 7 Plus, at the time the nicest, most expensive phone in the world. That’s why, when I gave it to her, I didn’t even let her open the box. 

“Don’t even think about touching this thing until we put a case on it,” I said. I’d already bought her an OtterBox AND a tempered glass screen protector, and immediately put it on.

“This case never comes off, okay? Merry Christmas.”

I’ll give her this much: She never took it off. Evgeniya is the only person I know to shatter an iPhone with that much protection. She has a particular set of skills.

I guess I shouldn’t be upset. Her other qualities are amazing. And, if it weren’t for Evgeniya being a klutz, we may never have gotten married. That phone she dropped in the Hudson? It was the impetus for her messaging her friendly neighborhood Verizon rep (me) seeking help, which eventually led to me asking her out on our first date. We’ve since gotten married and have a beautiful baby girl, Sasha.

That reminds me: Do they have OtterBoxes that fit babies?