My cell phone is used so much I need chargers in my bedroom, living room, the office and in the car. I didn’t expect it to make it through its life cycle without getting a few nicks and scratches. I didn’t expect to be careless enough to have the glass shatter to pieces either.

But one unfortunate night not too long ago, leaving the Braves game after drowning my sorrows in a loss, I reached for my phone to send out a tweet, and witnessed firsthand what happens when glass meets concrete. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

When I first upgraded to the iPhone 4, I wasn’t interested in getting a “bumper” to fix any antennagate problems, and I didn’t want to get a case. Some will argue that with the assortment of cases available in the market, you’re able to customize the look of your phone to make it yours. There’s nothing wrong with that argument, and I agree. I also think that you should be able to keep your phone free of any “customizations” if you want and keep the look and feel that the phone had when you first took it out of the box. Without worrying about it getting damaged by using it. Granted, my liquid-fueled mishap wasn’t an activity the phone was intended to be used for, but you get the point.

Despite the hometown loss by the Braves, I was having a good evening, and I didn’t want to ruin it by looking directly at the damage done that night. The next morning is when I finally faced the music. Luckily it was only the back of the phone that shattered, so it was still useable. Unless I wanted to risk cutting my hands on the broken glass everytime I went to use the phone though, I had to get it fixed.

I like taking things apart, and I like doing repairs on my own when possible. After reading around the net on what it would take to fix it myself, I was convinced I could handle it. After an extensive search on Amazon, I found my replacement part for under $10 (Repairing at the Apple Store would set you back $30, but you also don’t risk voiding the warranty by having them do it), and anticipated its arrival.

To remove the back panel, there are two screws on the bottom of the phone that you have to take off. The repair kit advertised that the necessary screwdriver comes with it, but it didn’t. Recently, Apple started using a weird star-shaped screw that a regular phillips head wouldn’t fit, probably to discourage do-it-yourselfers like me from attempting the repair. With a little patience, I was still able to get the screws removed, and then slid the back panel up so that a small gap opened up towards the bottom. Once that was done, the panel came right off.

With the panel removed, the nerd in me was able to get an up close view of the guts of the phone for the first time. Most people probably don’t care to see stuff like this, but I got a kick out of it:

I followed the directions to install the new back panel, and struggled to get the screws back in place (it was much harder to screw them back in without the right screwdriver) and before long my phone was as good as new:

After this experience, I shopped around and decided to customize the look of my phone by getting a case. You know what they say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…” Hmm, that saying just isn’t the same after good old W. used it. I can’t say how well the case works since there hasn’t been an accidental drop since adding it, but it has a much better chance of surviving a fall now. The moral of the story: You need a case for your iPhone!!!