Day 123 Turned Inside Out and Exploded

One of my favorite movies is "Galaxy Quest."  It's a quirky science fiction movie that is about a science fiction television show.  The movie pokes a lot of fun at television series like "Star Trek." 

At one point in the show, the hero, played by Tim Allen, needs to be transported to the ship in a manner called "digitizing."  The ship has been carefully recreated based on the aliens watching the science fiction television show. Only, they have figured out how to make everything work.


In the scene Allen is fighting a rock monster and its not going well. The machine has never been used for humans, and the aliens and Allen's acting co-stars initially beam up an animal from the planet.  Once the animal arrives, it turns inside out and explodes.  Allen is getting desperate and has the crew digitize him anyway. The scene provides some comedic suspense and gets a few pokes in at "Star Trek."

While we were traveling we discovered my

IPhone had a bulge that was separating the front face of the phone from the back.  The separation has been getting worse, so I decided to make an appointment at the Apple store. There are a couple of stores relatively close to the house.  One is in a giant mall and everytime you go in, the noise and the crowd are nearly overwhelming.

I made the decision to go to the other nearby store They could make an appointment for the afternoon, while the earliest appointment I could get at the other place was almost 24 hours later.

The space at the second Apple location is a touch smaller, but there still was a lot of noise and seeming chaos. We contacted an employee to check in and then still waited.  From the last time we went to the Apple store the wait time was significantly less, which was good since I was traversing the terrain on my scooter.

Two different employees took one look at the phone and said that at least one, if not more of the battery cells had "expanded."  This is nice talk for saying that the lithium battery had exploded.  When lithium does this it creates carbon dioxide and the subsequent gas pushes the face away from the body.  It cost just over $85 to replace the phone since they can't replace the battery.  Apple essentially gave me a new phone for the cost of a lithium battery.

Who would have thunk it?  Hopefully my phone conversations will be clearer in the future.

It did get me thinking about how some words are used.  The Apple employees were careful to not use the word "explode" and made great efforts to correct use of that word to "expand."

Technically, the release of the gas did expand the phone face plate, but what caused it was an explosion of the lithium battery.  I'm willing to bet some ad person, or attorney or both advised the

company to use a more gentle word than "explode."  Explode sounds violent and provides images of all sorts of destruction. That's an image I am sure Apple doesn't want to present its loyal followers.

Other businesses do it as well.  A lot of doctors try to use words that are less frightening when they discuss a diagnosis with their patients. Teachers might say something about a student who breaks rules and couch it as "So and so likes to stretch boundaries."

Politicians, from the highest to the lowest offices on both sides of the proverbial aisle. do it all the time.  Plain speech, straight talk seems to have left the building along with Elvis.

So, my expanded phone, the one with the battery that really did explode has been replaced.  I'm opting for more straight talk, as much as I can use without being rude or frightening.

I'm just thankful the phone didn't turn inside out and then explode.