Charge It

When was the last time you heard someone mention that their mobile phone battery had run out, but they hadn't noticed (either until they tried to make a call, or someone asked them why they hadn't been answering their phone)? I recall, years ago, this being a fairly frequent claim. Perhaps not always true, but common enough to always be plausible.

Today the claim is less common, and less plausible. Having been incorporated more fully into our routines, we notice more quickly when our charge is low or dead. Certainly there are still some absent-minded folk who forget to charge their phones, but today they are the exception rather than the rule. I wonder if, in the early days, people regularly forgot to gas up their cars?

On the other hand, another (somewhat contradictary) experience which many people will share: having a dead phone battery, and access to another mobile or landline, which is of no value because the number you need is trapped inside your phone's lifeless corpse.