Cell Phones Save the Day!!!

I am pretty critical of cell phones and how they are used. There is nothing that infuriates me more than hearing a phone ring in class or listening to people talk on their phone in the bathroom. Furthermore, I usually do not find cell phones to be appropriate in schools, but I have had to warm up to their presence as my placement school has pretty lax rules on cell phone use.
I can't stand it when I see students text messaging in class, taking pictures instead of doing work, or leaving the room to make a phone call. However, today in class, cell phones saved my lesson. I had to teach a lesson where students had to do simple calculations that required the use of calculators, but no one had calculators. I had that panic moment where I thought - oh holy s--t, what am I going to do? A student must have noticed my panic stricken face because he said "why don't we use our cell phones? They have calculators." Brilliant. Most of the kids, or at least one in every pair, had cell phone and were able to make the calculations. Maybe cell phones aren't so bad after all?!