As a 28-year-old whose screws up a lot, I in no way feel qualified to dispense life advice on most topics. Having said that, I feel pretty confident in issuing this one small token of advice:

If you drop your smartphone in an open-pit toilet, just let it go, man, it’s lost.

In fact, if you drop anything into an open-pit toilet–just forget about it. The only exception to that rule is if you were to drop a loved one, possibly a pet or small child, into the giant vat of poop–and even then I’d probably think twice about it.

Two people are dead and one is reported as unconscious after six grown adults in China jumped in an open-air septic tank looking to retrieve a lost phone.

According to the AFP a women dropped her $200 smartphone into the poo pit, and her husband immediately went in after it. When the smell hit him, he passed out. His mother then jumped in (after her son, not the phone I assume) and also proceeded to faint.

The owner of the phone and her father-in-law followed the two down the one-meter sq. hole and reportedly “became ill” (you think?).

It didn’t stop there, as two neighbors then jumped in as well.

People in the town were forced to use ropes to retrieve all six from the toilet tank. Horribly, two were dead (the husband and his mother) and one (the phone-owner) was left seriously injured.

As we head into the weekend, it’s important to remember than no matter how much you paid for a device, you should draw the line at poop retrievals. Also, in a related piece of life advice, also avoid oncoming trains.

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