Long story short, I woke up on Wednesday and found my Blackberry sitting in a tiny amount of water near the sink. It was just enough so that it suctioned the unit to the counter, but not enough so that I could physically see it was sitting in water. This was a very small amount of water.

It wouldn’t turn on at all. I tried drying it in the sunlight, charging it, taking the battery out a few times and putting it back in… No go.

On my lunch break, I went to the Verizon store and the person “helping” me said that the chip was dead and the battery was dead. There was nothing I could do. He said they couldn’t pull any data off of it, and that I was supposed to have been backing it up to my home computer (huh?). He gave me three options:

1. Buy a new Blackberry World for regular retail price ($500)
2. Wait 3 weeks until my 1-year anniversary and buy one for $170
3. Buy a refurbished unit for $50 but it doesn’t come with a battery, and they don’t sell batteries

After he pulled out the battery and put it back in again, I noticed the unit came on very briefly and then shut itself off again. He continued to try to convince me that it was completely dead and wouldn’t work any more. I told him what to do with his three choices, and went back to work.

Andrew listened to the story and thought maybe a new battery was all it needed. I found out that Fry’s Electronics carries batteries for Blackberry units. I went down and purchased one for $24.99 and low and behold – my Blackberry is no longer a Brokeberry.

So there, Verizon. Screw you and your quest for another $500 from this customer!

Mental note: Don’t place Blackberry in puddles of water…