Christopher Joel

Two years ago, I heard the announcement that Apple was planning to release a phone.  Having been a Palm phone guy for years, this excited me.  I’m a totally Apple fanboy, I admit it.  I nearly crapped myself as I read the live bloggers posting pictures of the first iPhone and transcription of  Job’s announcements.  My wife and I switched to AT&T in anticipation.  Unfortunately, the first-gen iPhone was priced out of my reach.  A year later, they announced the iPhone 3G.  I could easily save up and purchase this one.  Right about the time I had the money saved up, I got a job at Belmont, who offered to provide a cell phone for me…and uses AT&T for their service.  After some wheeling and dealing, I got my first iPhone.  I tried to hide my giddiness as I opened the package and turned it on.  I began to find uses for it in my daily work: taking pictures of error messages, downloading to-do apps to keep track of what I had left to work on, etc.  I used for personal stuff too: music, pictures from vacation, & addresses for eBay sales.  Thus begins my folly.

Saturday, I went to a foreign post office to mail a wah pedal I sold.  Not foreign, like in another country (I’m in Nashville for Pete’s sake!), but foreign like, it’s not the one I normally go to, foreign.  There was no one in the room when I entered, but I could hear the postal workers jabbering the back.  I used their automated machine to print the shipping label, but it requires that you write the sender’s name and address.  Woodbine is apparently the ghetto in the burbs because all the pens were missing.  So I fetched one from the car and when I got back to the counter, I set the phone down and copied the address.  This is where my nightmare begins.  I put the pen in my pocket, picked up the package and put in the mail tumbler, and walked out the door.  I got in the car and started driving to my parent’s house for my birthday dinner plans when Anna mentioned something about her phone and I panicked, realizing I didn’t have my phone.  I immediately threw the car in reverse and zipped back into the parking lot.  With my eyes glued on the front door, Anna began calling.  No answer.  Parking in front of the front door, I ran back inside… no phone anywhere.  She kept calling.  I didn’t hear any vibrations or her ringtone.  Nothing.

We called at least 20 times, sent multiple text messages with offers of cash to return it, begging, pleading – all to no avail.  There was only one person in the post office when I returned and I asked him at least twice if he had seen and he said no.  The grumpy backroom guy said he didn’t see it in the mail bin (I thought maybe I had dropped in with box by accident).  It was just simply gone.

The most horrifying thing about it is that the phone didn’t belong to me.  I already had images of my boss screaming at me and sending me home crying over a lost phone and a lost job.  By the grace of God, she wasn’t upset.  She wasn’t sure I’d get a replacement phone, but there was no yelling, no screaming, not even a red tint to her face.  She just called the AT&T rep to check on a replacement.  He called back the next day saying there would be no free replacement and the phone would be full price ($600 – ouch!).  I work for a specific college too, so the dean would have to pay for it since she paid for the first phone.

Having used an iPhone for two months, it will be difficult to use anything else.  Sure, other phones can do all the same stuff, but after driving a Porsche for a while, do you really want to go back to your old Toyota?  I haven’t heard the dean’s answer yet, so there’s still hope.  If they say no, then I’ll probably have to hold out.  If the school provides a cell phone, it would be stupid to pay for another cell.