iPhone 4

For a couple of weeks now my sister Genevieve has been jonesin' for a new iPhone 4. Being the pushover that I am and since I quite literally have nothing else to do I told her I would wait in line with her all night so she could get one. I thought I would regret that but it was probably the strangest, yet most fun experience I have had in a while.

4:00 AM: We showed up because we didn't feel the need to be one of the weirdos with a tent, etc who was there all night. The line was outside of the mall and only about 20 people deep. Suckas! We slept in our beds and are only just barely behind you in line. But as time went on and we decided to venture, we quickly saw that every entrance of the mall had at least 20 people waiting to storm in. Crap. So we got our strategy down. The doors would open at 5:00 AM and we would get in the two lines that were closest to the Apple store and see who could get the best spot in line. Genius, I know.

5:00 AM: Some poor security guard shows up to unlock the door and everyone's mouths start foaming as they press their sneakers into the cement, ready to run. The 19 year old guard in a Smokey The Bear get up sheepishly tells us not to run, etc. and that the lines will meet up at the entrance of the store with everyone maintaining their spot in line. After opening the door all goes well for about .35 seconds when someone decides to run. Our basic animal instincts of survival of the fittest kick in as we all start trampling down the door and sprinting through the empty mall. The scene was somewhere between a stampede of wildebeests from Planet Earth and the zombies in the 1970's Dawn of the Dead. Genevieve's line ended up being way closer than mine so we were actually within the first 75 or so people. Behind us were at least a few hundred others. As far as we're concerned we survived the worst of it, now we just have to wait for the doors of the store to open and we will be set. Wrong.

7:00 AM: As we are sitting and enjoying free Chic-Fil-A, Nestle cookies and Smart Water something weird happens. It is comparable to the beginning of America's Got Talent or a concert as all the geeky guys who work at Apple begin running from the food court down our line. They are screaming and holding out their hands for high fives. Nerds receive few glory days, so they had decided to make the most of this one. At this point they tell us that there is going to be a second line forming on the opposite side of the store for Preorders. They tell us that for every 50 people they let go from Preorders they will let 5 people go from our line. Crap. All this time masses of people have been showing up and we're probably up to at least five or six hundred iPhone hungry people. Then over half of the line proceeds to go to the other line while I silently weep in the corner over the injustice Apple has created. Of course we all TRIED to preorder, but their website just couldn't handle the traffic of over half the US population trying to preorder at once. I felt discriminated against. The rich, fast internet connection owners were sitting pretty while all of us low class dial up and slow connection peasants were moved to the bottom of the totem poll.

They start letting people in and I hate every person who walks out the door with an iPhone 4 as they wave it in the faces of everyone in our line. We aren't moving at all while the preorders are cycling through quickly. The 50:5 ratio was true in every sense.

10:30 AM: We are about 10 feet closer to the entrance of the store. I can't tell if it's because we are actually moving or now we are all breathing down the neck of the person in front of us. All the while we have maintained our spirits because we have been continually reassured that our position in line is basically guaranteed an iPhone, it's just a game of waiting at this point. Then a man who looks like a manager comes out with two police officers. This doesn't look good. He has brought protection. He then proceeds to tell us that nobody left in our line will probably get an iPhone 4. What?? Oh no he din't. Needless to say it's a good thing he brought protection because the animal instincts had returned. Everyone was like rabid chimpanzees grabbing the ropes keeping us in line, screaming and flailing everywhere. It was so crazy that people in line started yelling at each other. "Hey angry white trash man, why don't you stop yelling at the manager so we can have our shot at him." I planned my exit strategy. There was only a kiosk of bellybutton rings between me and the emergency exit. I expected the SWAT team with protective masks, shields and bean bag guns would show up for crowd control. However the ripple of the anger only last about 10 minutes. We all decided that Steve Jobs was the most ignorant man in existence for such a ridiculous system. The mix up had happened because everyone who was there was allowed to buy 2 iPhones, but they had only reserved 1 for each preorder. So all the preorder people were buying our iPhones. They tried to console us by telling us to get in another line that was starting that was to get on a list to get into a line for tomorrow. So we split up again with me maintaining our position in line.

11:30 AM: The same store manager reappears and all of the sudden they now magically have enough iPhones for some of us. We are all brimming with tears of joy and praising Steve Jobs as the most wonderful man in existance. Apple is by far the most brilliant company in existence and we are once again it's loyal followers. So the manager has a tally list and starts working his way down the line. We got on the list, but the cutoff was literally like 10 people behind us. If we'd have been just a footstep slower our fate would have differed.

12:30 AM: We have completed the 50 foot journey from our spot in line to the front of the Apple store. The store smells of new electronics and plastic glory. Genevieve and I bask in the glory of the small, yet perfect iPhone 4 box. I never knew a piece of technology could hold this much sway on your happiness.

All in all it was a weird experience where we made many friends and had a lot of good laughs. I think Apple planned it this way though, just to let all of us consumers know that they held the reigns and to make us want the iPhone 4 more than life itself. It worked.