I’ve been watching the latest news stories about the new iPhone 5 and frankly I’m a little worried about some of our nerds.  According to some news stories people are already planning to spend the night in lines outside of Apple stores so they will be the first in their group to get the phone. The rest of their group will probably get one five minutes later but it doesn’t matter.  They won’t be first!  One news story mentioned that a guy, of course, ran his SUV into an Apple store so he could be the first to steal an iPhone 5.  I guess no one told him they weren’t even in the stores yet. I wonder if they’ll let him use it in the looney bin because, in my opinion, this guy is nuts.  I mean it’s just a phone, right?

I decided this week, after much thought, to break down and buy an iPhone.  I currently use a cell phone that has limited features.  No camera, no music, no internet and no touch screen.  Instead you can basically only call people and talk to them.  Who needs that in a phone?  I wanted a couple of bells and whistles!  I also wanted a touch screen and the ability to do ‘face time’ with my two year old granddaughter who is the proud owner of her very own iPad!  I get sweaters for Christmas and she gets an iPad for making pee-pee in the potty.  Somehow that just doesn’t seem fair.  After she got it she generously showed me how to use it.  We played a game where a voice asks you to pick out a letter.  You touch the letter and if you’re right it says, “Great job!”.  If you’re wrong it says, “Oh no! Try again”.  I was getting a lot of  “Great jobs!” and then I accidentally touched a B instead of the V it was asking for.  Of course it told me to try again which I did.  After it told me I had done a great job my little granddaughter leaned over, patted me on the shoulder, and said, in a very serious tone, “Good job Mama Cindy.  Good job”.  I bet she worries about me a lot and wonders if I rode the short bus to school. 

But getting back to the iPhone.  

I went online with my current cell phone carrier and looked around at the many phones they had to offer.  I read some of the specifications, compared the different phones, examined the pros and cons of each phone, and then picked one based on the fact it would only cost me a penny with a two year contract.  It is an iPhone but isn’t the latest and greatest from Apple.  In fact it’s an iPhone 3 GS but I didn’t care.  I was getting an iPhone!  The cell phone carrier emailed me my new phone number and the tracking number.  Then the waiting began.

The day after I ordered the phone online I went to the USPS tracking site and typed in the tracking number.  It told me my new phone was in transit to Fort Worth, Texas.  It didn’t exactly say where it had been previously but I was a little jealous because even though I’ve been to Texas several times, I’ve never been to Fort Worth.  From what I’ve read, Fort Worth has many attractions.  For instance it has the Bureau of Engraving and Printing-Western Division, a three acre club called Billy Bob’s Of Texas,  the Cowtown Opry,  Log Cabin Village where you can experience the sights, sounds and smells of 19th-century Texas, I imagine it smells a lot like cows and horses, and last but certainly not least, The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame which is, according to the website,  “the only museum in the world dedicated to honoring trailblazing women of the American West“.  I was sort of hoping my new iPhone would take some pictures so we could share them while getting to know each other after it arrives. I continued checking the tracking number just in case it decided to wander off somewhere else but it pretty much stayed in Fort Worth for the rest of the day.  

The next morning, while I was drinking my first cup of coffee, I checked the tracking number again and found out it was on it’s way out of Forth Worth.  This was great news!  Unfortunately it didn’t tell me where it was going and I started to worry.  What if the cell phone company realized they had made a mistake and were canceling my order?  Maybe they had all gotten together the night before and after a couple of rounds of beers they decided I wasn’t intelligent enough to use a smart phone.  What if a certain, smart aleck customer service guy brought up the fact I had once called him because I couldn’t figure out how to end a call on my old not-so-smart phone.  Maybe they had all decided they simply were not up to the numerous technical support calls I was likely to make and had gone by the USPS office in Fort Worth to pick up my phone and take it back to wherever it had come from.  Maybe I should just crash my car into an Apple store to get my own Apple iPhone 3 GS!  I wonder how they would like that?  That would show them!  Now I was starting to worry about me.

I worried the rest of the day and looked for warning emails from the cell phone company.   The only email I did end up getting from them was one that stated I needed to pick out a data plan for my new phone after I received it or they were going to assign me a data plan.  I had no idea what a data plan was but if I needed one I would definitely pick out my own.  As usual I would do comparisons of each plan, the cost effectiveness and practicality of each plan based on my needs, and then I would pick the biggest one they offered.  I may be a woman but I also like the biggest and best of everything. 

The next day I went back to the USPS website and entered the tracking number again.  This time it said my phone was en-route to Shelby!  It was getting closer and I could already feel my fingers on it’s little plastic case, caressing the shiny screen, checking my Facebook page and emails.  Pretty much the same things I already do with my computer which I’ve owned for the past five years.  One of the first things I wanted to do was to send a message to a friend that says, “Sent from my iPhone”.  Wouldn’t that be great?  I also want to show a certain smarty-pants two year old that I am intelligent enough to own and use an iPhone. 

This morning I checked the tracking number again and got the following message:  Your item is out for delivery at 9:25 am on September 15, 2012 in SHELBY, NC 28150.  In other words, after traveling across the country, through burning deserts, large impersonal cities, and through the hands of cold, uncaring, post office employees, my long awaited baby was almost here.  

I read that message at 10:15 am.  My mail usually comes around 12:30 pm so I figured I had a couple of hours to waste on housework, laundry, washing dishes, etc.  This is how the rest of the day went.

10: 15 am, 11:00 am, 11:15 am, 12:00pm- still out for delivery.

12:15 pm, 1:00 pm, 1: 15 pm,1:30 pm-still out for delivery dammit.

1:45 pm, 2:00 pm, 2:15 pm, 2:30 pm-Can’t you read you moron? It’s still out for delivery. 

And so on and so on.  My mailman, which is always here by 1:00 pm at the latest had decided today, of all days, to poke around and be late.  I did little things to distract myself like hanging some of my clothes outside on the clothesline, sweeping the front porch, checking to make sure my mailbox hadn’t run away, etc.  Most of my distracting activities were outside just in case the mailman pulled up in the driveway and blew his horn so I could get my package.  I didn't want to miss him.  It doesn’t matter that I own two dogs who will bark if a leaf two blocks away happens to fall on the grass.  I figured with my luck this would be the day they would both go deaf and then I would have to wait until Monday for my precious iPhone to arrive. I gave up at 3:00 pm.  Obviously the mailman had come and gone without delivering my iPhone and trust me, Monday morning heads were going to roll because of it.  I was still thinking of all the awful things I was going to do to my mailman when at 3:15 pm, I saw him drive up to my mailbox, put in some mail, and then drive away after giving me a little toot on his horn.  I walked slowly to the mailbox and there it was.  A brown box containing my precious iPhone.  I almost cried. 

So now I’m sitting here with my new baby in my hands.  The little icons are lined up on the screen and it’s just waiting for me to make the first move. There are a couple of things I’ve learned from this experience.  First of all, if you are as impatient as I am, you’re probably better off going to the store to buy your phone.  Second of all, even though it’s just a phone it’s easy to get sucked into all the hype and start acting in ways you’ve never dreamed of.  Lastly I’ve learned the tech support number for my iPhone because somebody needs to tell me how to turn it on.