Lessons in Motherhood

Happy iPhone4 Release Day, everyone! Of course, we received our new iPhones yesterday because we are the earliest of adopters. We are like the pre-adopters, the time-warp-back-in-time adopters, the stand-in-line-at-the-Apple-Store-for-12-hours adopters, the-I’m-the-one-who-stole-that-guy’s-prototype-phone-at-the-bar adopters. You have to be a super geek or wife of a geek to get that last one. Anyway, you get the idea. Well, be prepared for the stupidest early adopter story ever. Are you ready?

Ok. Right before Apple announced the iPhone4, I told Luke that I needed a new phone because mine was slow and buggy. When he said that the new ones were coming out, I thought that he would get a new one and I would take his old one as that is the normal evolution of technology in this household. Then, I decided that this time would be different. I should get the new phone, and he could keep his old one. Buck the system! Throw caution to the wind and get the coolest thing out there just this one time. Yeah. That kind of didn’t fly with him so it was determined that we would BOTH get new iPhones. Fine. Whatever.

Of course, I still had this little piece of me that was scheming to get the new phone before him just so that I could act like a three-year-old and run around with my new little toy in front of him. Well, that didn’t work at all because I don’t have the patience or stamina to spend 10 hours online trying to order two phones. My husband, bless his early adopter heart, does!

Thus, two phones arrived at our house yesterday. Well, actually three phones arrived which confused me until I realized that one belonged to a neighbor of mine who was thoroughly relieved when I called him. He was on vacation and had a neighbor watching out for the phones and was totally distraught when it didn’t arrive. Who goes on vacation on National iPhone Release Day? Sorry. I digress.

So, Luke was not here to receive the phones, and by not here, what I mean is that he is in France for business until Sunday. So, in essence, I did get my phone first. Ha! So there! Now, I have been scheming with people at my office to play a joke on Luke to tell him that something was wrong with the shipment. I decided to go with the “they sent the 3G phones, not the iPhone4″ since AT&T had sent me an email saying “let’s talk about your 3G phone” which I promptly forwarded to Luke to sow the seed of doubt about his iPhone4 ordering skills.

Are you following this? I called him in France and told him that Apple sent us the wrong phones. That’s what I did. Because I’m mean and evil. Here’s how karma bit my ass right back…

Ok. Two phones arrived. Both were addressed to Luke. Both looked exactly the same and had no identification as to whose phone was whose. Since the iPhone4 takes a miniSIM card which is different from the SIM card in our current phones, I didn’t know how to activate it so I called Apple. The woman, Tia, on the phone was very nice and told me to plug the phone into the computer. Novel idea. Thanks, Tia. I plugged it in and iTunes brought up Luke’s phone number and asked me for the last 4 of his social. I thought that I was logging into our account so that I could activate the phone. iTunes had other ideas. It immediately began activating the phone on Luke’s account. That essentially means that it DEACTIVATED his old SIM card which is in his old iPhone which he is using while in France. OOPS!!!

After an hour of talking to AT&T and Apple, we determine that there is no way to reactivate his old phone unless I ship him a new SIM card from here. Ugh! What kind of crappy ass system is this?!?!?! Even the AT&T lady told me that they were planning on there being problems so they are offering people free replacement SIM cards. Here’s an idea…if you think that there are going to be problems why not give better instructions? Why not fix it so that there aren’t problems? Why not communicate with Apple so that they are aware of the problem and don’t tell people like me to just plug and go? Argh!!! You know who I blame for this? Steve Jobs. Because I always blame him and now there is one more reason for him to pay for my marriage counseling because my husband probably wants to divorce me right now. Fortunately, he can’t call to tell me that because he has no phone.