Y'all ever have intrusive thoughts about accidentally dropping stuff in storm drains? (particulary when you have your phone out) And like if that happens, wtf is someone supposed to do?

Those thoughts are not crazy. I feel like that every time I take a picture off a bridge or tall building and I'm leaning over the edge to get a better angle. I found peace of mind in a lanyard strap.

You can call the city and have them open it and fish it out. Happens to my mom when she went to a friends for a game night. They were the ones that actually called people, we just got her a new phone.

I used to live on a boarding school campus as an administrator. My kids and I were hanging on a culvert at a pond on the campus, I leaned over to look at something and my black iPhone 7 slid right out of my breast pocket and into the water. I knew that I had like fifteen minutes before it died. So I ran home, grabbed a wetsuit jacket (it was like February in Florida, cold enough to need this) and put on my board shorts and ran back to the water with a net. I waded in, felt my body sink down to my knees in muck. It was so gross that I wasn't about to let my head get underwater. But I felt with my feet and used the net to pull stuff up from around where I saw the phone fall (while my wife pinged it with the Find My app). She watched the dot disappear and that's when we knew the phone had died. Never found it.

I took like three showers after that, just to be sure. And I do not go near ponds with my phone anywhere except in my hip pockets (or in a sling bag)

I think it's a variation of the "call of the void".

Your brain has an instinct to imagine the worst possible situation to keep you safe.

People lose stuff at subways all the time. Contact the staff and they'll fish it up. Keys in drains can be retrieved with a magnet on a rope. If you lose something in a drain indoors, you can probably open the water trap and take it. Heavy things don't just flush out easily.

The thought goes through my head everytime. One time I was on the middle of having one of those obtrusive thoughts in a carpark with the drain near my car and thinking "why do I always have these stupid thoughts?" And then dropped keys right down that drain as I was just about to go to work.

I was pretty lucky actually, it was an enclosed storm drain not connected to any sewer or anything so the keys couldn't go anywhere and it was completely dry inside and I was able to call the number for the local council and ask for help who called these two guys that apparently actually technically don't work for the council who told me that in fact the council weren't really able to help with that anyway and in fact they wouldn't normally either because of something tondo with the carpark being private property but because they happened to be out dealing with something else right near there anyway they'd swung by to help me out and they used a tool to open up this drain, hop in and pick up my keys that were visible through the grating. They did it all for me in about 10 minutes flat. I offered to buy them a slab of beer but they said they weren't allowed to accept gifts from the public. I bought them each a coffee anyway. Universe was really looking out for me that day. I was only about 10 minutes late for work after the whole thing.

Or like the gap in the elevator?

A friend of mine managed to drop car keys there so yes, it actually happens.

He managed to get it out with some stick or something. So attach some sort of key chain to your phone case. At least there will be something to grab it by. And carry a string with a hook with you.

I filmed a lake with dark clouds over it a couple weeks ago for a video outro, set my phone up at the edge of a dock, held onto it the entire time. Could not stop thinking about how screwed I'd be if I had a hand spasm, or if there was a gust of heavy wind, or if the dock suddenly shook and my phone dropped into the lake.

This happened to my dad once when I was a kid, but obviously not with a cell phone but rather his keys. We learned a few things that day, one of which is that cast iron storm drain grates are even heavier than they look, but the other was that if you get your hands on a big prybar you get all Archimedes in its face and not have to lift the damn thing.

If you're e.g. an average apartment dweller and haven't got a 7' prybar in your shed, I don't know what to tell you.

I have intrusive thoughts about everything all the time lol

Yeah I noticed there's a decent enough gap in the elevator about a week ago and now I'm paranoid whenever I exit it.

I feel like an intrusive thought would be more like wondering if you should intentionally drop your phone to see what happens.

Worrying about dropping your phone is actually smart and not intrusive. It's very pragmatic to be concerned about the possibility of an accident and to try to prevent it. Some people don't have enough of those thoughts...

If I'm near an open window, I might have an intrusive thought of "what if I accidentally chuck my phone out the window?"

I have no idea how anything like that could happen accidentally. I grip my phone tighter.

When I was a kid I rode my bike to rent a movie. On the way home I lost control on some ice and watched the VHS cassete go skidding across the cement only to teeter halfway over the ledge of a storm drain. I managed to get it but didn't know what I would of done had it fallen in.

I once dropped a toothbrush down the sink. Normally sinks have a catcher mesh installed but we had to remove ours as a quick fix for it leaking. I dropped it perfectly and shoop it's down the sink. I did fish it out because it hit the ubend and stayed there but I threw it away and got a new one lol. Everything was fine for years though, it was an extremely rare shot for it to go down and not just lay flat in the sink.

This is not helping. I too grip my phone and keys and stuff going over scary things like grates!

Assuming it survives the fall to the bottom of the elevator shaft, the building management should be able to retrieve it for you.

I do, because I had my phone fall down the street drain. Thankfully it hadn’t rained in a while. I was able to open the manhole cover, drop down and grab it.

No. It's certainly something i consider and i make sure to have a better hold of my things, but it's not something that distresses me or i obsess over.

subway ive done. i waited for the train to leave and then jumped down onto the tracks

elevator shaft ive seen twice. building super will have the ability to open the doors on the bottom floor while the elevator is stopped on floor >1

storm drain? i have entered them but not officially

Years ago I had a little LED flashlight hanging from my keychain.

I was running cable in my house, and had wiggled along inside a wall in the attic. I was looking down a section of wall next to the bathroom and was using the flashlight on my keys to peer down the wall.

Luckily I realized how stupid I was being, and managed to put my keys back in my pocket before I dropped them down inside a wall.

I drove my friend’s RC car into a storm drain when I was a kid.

Don't worry, if you drop your phone down there, a nice clown will retrieve it for you. Apparently phones float in the sewer!

I always either put away my phone or grip it tighter in those situations. Gripping is often safer, since I've dropped my phone more than once by missing my pocket

Yep. Nowadays it's mostly storm drains but it's happened with pool drains and jumping off high places. I hold my keys tightly when going to check the mailbox. 🫠

Yes yes I do

I think about it every time I have to walk over something like that.

I remember having recurring dreams in which I would fall into the gap in the elevator or between the subways/trains and the plattform, etc. and then jolt away with a whole-body flinch.

The dreams went away as I got older, but I still grip stuff (e.g. my phone) as tightly as I can if I have to carry it across those gaps ^^

i never don't have those thoughts, which is why my keys are on a lanyard and i think popsockets are mandatory for phones, i got an iron grip on that motherfucker

My intrusive thoughts usually revolve around yeeting my phone off a bridge or a boat. I've managed to contain myself so far.

As for storm drains, I lost my keys down a deep one a few months back. Went to the hardware store and bought strong magnets and a wire and got them out after a lengthy fishing expedition.

Have you ever walked over a cattle guard? It's creepy as fuck.

This is the fear that induced me to get a gravity hook.

The show Pluribus had a cool scene about this

I guess you'd just have to get a new phone

I just stretch my tubular arms real long until they're super thin. Simple.

just life the drain and hop in.

IF your unconscious-mind is playing that kind of game, AND you give-in to it, THEN it gets stronger, in its subjugation of your life to its bullying.

Give it NO ground, & don't budge on that.

All your life, if required.

The people who give-in to their unconscious-ignorance's ordering them to murder people, because they felt if they just-gave-in, then the unconscious-mind's bullying would relent .. don't get the result they were making-believing-in:

bullying which gains compliance, grows and that should be obvious.

that is true of all unconscious-ignorance's bullying, small or great.

Give it no ground, & set about consolidating your control/ownership/possession of YOUR life, against that kind of thing.

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