How a Japanese Saved My iPhone from Destruction

I just cannot let this day pass without dedicating a blogpost for today's blessing so here goes...

While the rest of the world and most of my guy friends are having a blast destroying monsters and devouring each other in the recently released Diablo III, my iphone also had a little adventure of its own. What I thought was an ordinary dinner time with labmates turned out to be a fatal moment for us both - a possible irreversible separation was bound to occur (I just love exaggeration). As a backgrounder, I often eat dinner in the school cafeteria or shokudo as we call it. After one dines, we have a customary procedure to bring our trays onto a conveyor which then carries them directly into the wash area..and when I say directly, the trays are led into water sprays and water baths and all those other gadget-threatening experiences. And being the absent-minded person that I always am (leaving and losing things ever so constantly), I put my tray on the conveyor after putting the spoon and the glass into their respective containers, not noticing that I mistook my iphone for a plate.

Typical shokudo food and the distinct blue tray which carried my iPhone to its possible "end"

The tray conveyor looked something like this, bringing the food trays towards the washing area (Photo credit)
I dont have the picture of the real one.

shokudo/cafeteria (Photo credit)

I went back to the lab and went on with my merry ways only to realize 20 minutes later that my iphone is gone. I silently panicked and then retraced my steps until it led me to the dreaded cafeteria wash area. I never walked so fast going to shokudo until this day and it was an agonizing experience thinking about my wet, unusable phone and figuring out how to ask the staff about it in Japanese (hahahahah) But as they say, Japanese people are an honest lot and today I can really testify to that. I went inside the wash area and I just said one word, "ketai?" and allowed the rest of my sentence to drown in itself as if saying "chotto...". The Japanese staff then said, "purple?" referring to the color of my phone and I just want to hug him right there (did I actually type/say that? Anyway no erasures). "Arigatou gozaimasu!" was all I managed to say over and over again. I got my phone from the cashier, signed the Lost and Found booklet and was then happily reunited with this "purple entity". What I realized is that I should pay more attention really, so it does not happen again (btw I also lost my school ID and almost lost my wallet when I dropped it at the bus stop). Nevertheless I am happy to meet such honest people. I just can't imagine leaving my phone somewhere else.

To the Japanese cafeteria staff, honto ni arigatou gozaimasu! ^_^