Since my beloved (Ha! Yeah right!) current mobile phone has opted to croak out on me just days before the big iPhone 4 pre-order release, I thought I would stop off at my local AT&T store on the way home from work to see if I could rectify the situation.
All day long I heard rumors about how the computers were acting up, about how AT&T and Apple were having a hard time keeping up the pace of the “big iPhone 4” order, yada yada.Oh, so I don’t know, maybe I was expecting a long line? Or, even worse, for them to tell me they had run out? What was I in store for and how ugly would this get?
So, after work, I trogged down to my local AT&T store and, as I was pulling my car into the lot, I noticed a promising sign: the parking lot was not full. Not full to say the least-I got a spot right near the front, almost right next to the door. Ok, so much for the “angry mobs and long lines” theory, still, there could be a lot of on-line ordering “foo” going on behind the scenes, right?
I went in and put my name on the list, then plunked myself down in front of the big AT&T U-verse display, which is basically a TV set. I waited for a few minutes until they called my name. I’d have to say the wait was no longer than maybe 5 minutes at worst and, frankly, watching TV a bit wasn’t too shabby.
I spoke with the nice man behind the counter, who looked obviously tired from a full, harrowing day of filling iPhone 4 orders, but was still nice enough to chat with me a bit. I answered all the questions as best I could, and picked out the options I had to pick out, all the while thinking, “gee, am I really going to get this thing?” He did warn me that the iPhones might not ship and be delivered on the 24th-that they could be delayed until July 5th (or later) because I did not get my order in “by 3 pm” which was some kind of unadvertised “cut off” time. Ok, again, whatever. I’ve waited a few years now, what’s another few weeks, right? I placed my order and the computer didn’t back up, nothing blew up, the world didn’t end, and life just sort of quietly went on.
So now I want to know, was it good Karma, dumb luck, fate, destiny, or some other thing? I mean, why did so many other people have such a hard time securing their iPhones? Did I maybe like order the wrong device? Maybe I was just a new customer and so they were kissing up to me a bit? Maybe their computers just decided to grace me or the sales guy I got was jumping? I don’t know.
But, this I do know. I’ll be getting a new iPhone 4 sometime in the near future. I hope. At least, I think. At least, that’s what all the paperwork was for.
And you know, you just know, the next time I try to get some kind of device, the entire world, life the universe and everything is going to blow up in some grand big “kaboom!” because, well, crap, even *I* can’t be all that lucky.
Until next time…
