The Mothership - Ms. Duh Monthly

May, 2008 Edition

by Ms. Duh
Contributing Columnist

It's still friggin May. I may be a little late.... a lot late, but it's still May.

If you've been following my adventures, the real life ones and not the ones with the ninjas nerds, then you know that I've gone clean out of my mind and have decided to move to North Carolina from the land of Oz. With little or no forethought or preparation (and no money to speak of), I've quit things, uprooted things and are in the mist of moving all these things east. And what a exciting, tingly, terrifying, soul refreshing nightmare.

It's only recently I took the leap into the 21st century, gave up the desktop and the landline for the Macbook and the iPhone. These two things have been pretty much of a godsend since I've decided to screw up my life even more lately. The google maps on the iPhone have kept me from driving clean into Florida when I get lost, the instant messaging keeps me in contact with people who may need to call 911 for me in case I find myself abducted by inbred, hillbilly thrill killers who want to use me as a white slave and sexual toy as they keep me chained to an old abandoned refrigerator in a mobile home somewhere hidden in the Ozarks. The iPod (stop, I know what I said before) is MAGNIFICENT. I only wish I had one of those cars you could plug it into and the music comes out of the speakers, because after a while the earbuds make me want to commit suicide in some ugly, gothic way. And of course, the phone part of the iPhone is invaluable too. I can order pizza.

But. The thing that I KNEW, KNEW, KNEW would happen, happened. I lost my iPhone.

I KNEW this would happen by the virtue of the fact that it was ME who owned it and I know ME and I wouldn't have let ME buy this because of this very real possibility.

Here's how the sad, sad, kind of funny, but sad event happened.

Since I am crazy now and moving to North Carolina (of which I still need a job and a place to live so if any of you have either for me, let me know... seriously), I had a little going away party at this little bar with all my coworkers. In fact, twenty-two showed up and subsequently, bought me drinks and what not. So, your's truly was pretty looped. But, throughout the night, I took lots of iPhone pictures, and kept the thing by my side, never letting it slip out of my control.

The one thing I DID let slip out of my control was my sobriety. And this is when many of the party-goers took this old lady bar hopping. And as far as I know I had the phone when I left. And that is the last memory I had of that night. I woke up the next morning, tucked in my bed, all pieces of clothing accounted for, iPhone gone.

It was heartbreaking. I had pictures from the party, and my last day, voicemails from dear friends, people's contacts, IMs that I loved - all that stuff. One thing I'd like to say to Apple - GIVE US A WAY TO FRACKING DOWNLOAD VOICEMAILS TO THE COMPUTER - it can't help me now, but for any other poor sap who doles out four large for this bitch, we need functionality of this kind. And I wish there was some handset replacement program. I've had the thing for about four months at that point. What would be mondo coolio is that if the serial number on the phone comes up as activated, I can be notified. I've been reading up on it, and Apple/AT&T COULD do it if they wanted to, they just don't want to. And there is no AT&T insurance available for the iPhone, nor do I think does Apple offer insurance either. My homeowner's policy covered it, but my deductible was 100 dollars more than the iPhone costs. Ain't that a booger?

So. I ended up dropping another four large on another phone, glaring at the AT&T people all the while I was buying the thing. I have build up a resentment towards this new phone. It feels like an arranged marriage, and I don't think it loves me like the last one. The last one and I went through a lot together. This one I have yet to bond with. We did spend some time together on this last brutal trip to North Carolina and we DID seem to get along a little better. It did save my ass from being lost forever in the piney woods of the south, so I'm pretty all right with that.

I hear the new ones will have GPS. HOLY MOTHER could I have used that or what? So what is the policy of getting this NEW iPhone with the GPS and the 3G capability? I... MIGHT...AUGH... BE... GETTING.... ANOTHER.... NEW.... IPHONE... but what do you do with the old one? Doesn't that just seem insane? Three iPhones in a year? Kind of confirms my earlier diagnosis that I have lost my ever-lovin' mind. Shhhh. Don't tell the phone I'm thinking about trading up. We will just get into a hairy fight, and it will make me go sleep on the couch.

You KNOW the next thing I will lose is the laptop, don't you?