Met a guy at the bus stop who fixed my phone screen with a hairdryer

I cracked my screen pretty bad near the corner, and this older guy named Mark at the 14th Street bus stop said he could fix it. He pulled out a hairdryer and a small suction cup from his bag and had it smoothed out in about 5 minutes. Turned out he used to work at a repair shop and just keeps the tools handy. Anyone else run into random repair pros out in the wild?

3 comments

3 Comments

kellys781mo ago

Oh man, that's so cool! I love running into people like that who can just MacGyver stuff on the spot. It reminds me of this one time my backpack zipper completely busted open at a coffee shop, and this older lady at the next table pulled out a needle and thread and stitched it up in like two minutes. She said she was a seamstress for 30 years and always carries a mini sewing kit. I mean, it's not every day someone saves your day like that, but when it happens it's just the best feeling. Idk, maybe it's just me but I feel like these random acts of repair are way more meaningful than just buying a new thing. You never know who's got a hidden skill until something breaks, you know?

casey6822mo ago

Hold on a second, that's not really a screen fix. He probably just reattached the glass layer that was peeling off, but the actual LCD or OLED underneath is still cracked. I've seen this trick before, it works if the glass lifted up without breaking the display itself, but if your screen had any dead pixels or black spots before he did it, he didn't fix those. It's more like a cosmetic patch job, not a real repair. Did you check if the touchscreen was still working fine after he smoothed it out?

blair_martin2mo ago

Are we really getting worked up over this? It's a screen trick that's been around forever, nothing groundbreaking. If someone's phone glass was just peeling off, this fix works fine for keeping it together until they upgrade. Not every repair has to be a full replacement, sometimes a bandaid is good enough for the short term. Plus, if the touchscreen still works, what's the big deal? Sure, it's not a permanent solution, but neither is spending a ton on a new screen for an old phone. You guys ever just let people be happy with a cheap fix?