FFM 2025 3: The value of a backup

Challenge: Include an item you have used today. Your protagonist is not allowed to use that item. The story must be at least 300 words long.

There were more words in this story but I realized while I was making the post itself that the third section went against the challenge, so I cut it and the fourth section. They’ll be included in my FFM 2025 collection, though.

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Blub

There it went. Your phone. Gone out of sight before the drops of water scattered by its fall had even settled back into the river. No way to recover it from the murky waters.

This must be the universe smiting you for not following the gut feeling that told you to back up your photos yesterday.

Getting the 2-factor authentication app on your new phone is going to be a pain, isn’t it?

…Wait. Since you’ve already sold your old phone and just lost your current one, you don’t have access to your banking app anymore. And you don’t have the slightest idea how to get it working on a new phone without the app on your to-be-replaced phone (other than that it probably (hopefully) requires that old key code list that you (hopefully) still have stashed somewhere, not that you’ve seen it during this decade).

…You’re going to have to get a new passport so you can identify yourself at the bank if you need help with that, aren’t you?

Oh joy.

~~~

You wish the river was not so deep you could not go dig out your old phone from the bottom of it. Not that the phone would be anything more than a palm-sized brick after falling into a body of water. Even if the parts that hold the phone’s data could be moved to another device like a regular hard drive, they are sure to be just as broken as the rest of the phone.

You had had a hunch about how much of a pain it would be to lose your current phone in today’s everything-must-be-done-with-mobile-apps nonsense, but the reality of it is even more of a pain than you had thought.

The young customer servant at the bank giving your key code list a funny look haunts your dreams. You regret having gotten so used to the (as you begrudgingly have to admit) handy app. And deciding you wanted to make sure you are talking to a human rather than a program pretending to be one. The latter more than the former, for sure.

Oh joy.