Better living through plastic

When I got my first iPod, my husband suggested that I get a Zagg  to cover it. If you're not familiar with this product, basically it is a plastic scratch resistant skin that you place on it. The advantage of such a product is you don't have a case that adds to the profile of the device making it bulky for your pockets and your purse. The other thing is that a scratched up display or touch screen will simply bug the crap out of me. To the point that I will obsess on that blemish and get irritated every time that I use the device. I know. It is neurotic. What did you expect?

You have to clean the device meticulously with the enclosed lint free cloth. You mist it with water. Then you take the sheathing and carefully, not letting your fingers touch the adhesive, place it on the iPod. You take the enclosed squeegee and push out air and water bubbles. If you do it correctly, you've got a gorgeous application with a surface that keeps your electronics from getting banged up. The neurotic person within me is saved.

It took me hours to wrap my iPod in it's Zagg protective sheathing. The most challenging part was the two concentric circles for the controls. I think part of my brain went up in smoke that day.

Despite that, the results were phenomenal. The iPod still looks brand new despite being obsolete in some ways. It only has 4G of storage so I can only have about half of all the music recorded in the last century stored upon it. Unacceptable.

Anyhow, when we got our new Samsung Droid phones, I went ahead and got the Zagg screen protector for it. This time I really missed that part of my brain that went up in smoke with the iPod installation. I couldn't get it right. I kept having to reposition the thing and by the end, there were all kinds of nasty pock marks in the sheathing. It has been bugging me for the past year. Seriously, I'm a wreck of a person.

Yesterday though, I found a new kiosk in the mall. There was a young man sitting behind the counter saying that if I would like to replace my old pock marked screen protector, he'd give me it since it is a lifetime warranty. He would only charge $5 for installation unless I wanted to do it myself.

Best $5 I had spent all day!

The only distressing thing is that the company would like to see why people are returning the films so he took my used cover and stuck it on a white piece of paper. It was horrifying. It was so brown it was practically black. That I could see the screen of my phone at all is remarkable. And the thought of the microbes making their nest on my smart phone screen conjures up memories of the South Park episode where the sea monkeys became sentient beings in Cartman's room. It is a good thing that no sea men were involved with the maintenance of my phone.

My phone looks brand spanking new. I think it actually works better. No joke! And this kid installed it in less than 10 minutes. 

I can't keep myself from touching it.