Daddy's Fish BowlA Clear View Of A Father's Family Experiences

Okay, so unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month (I’ve always wanted to say that!!!), you probably know that Apple’s latest and greatest product in the mobile market, the iPhone 4 was released last Thursday.  The day was complete pandemonium, the news covered the release, blogs debated the phone’s greatness, and your truly lined up to purchase the hottest phone of um, well, this month.  Haha, you know phones are constantly one upping each other, so the fanfare won’t last long.  But for now, it’s awesome and all my troubles were well worth it so far.  When I say troubles, it’s definitely not an understatement; I went through hell and back to get this phone! I was the fortunate recipient of blisters on my feet, slipped into a state of delirium due to lack of sleep, and almost lost my life because of a disgruntled Apple customer.

I’ll get to my Apple experience in a moment, but while in line I had an epiphany which I think explains the very reason I was in line on that almost fateful day.  During the 3 seconds that I thought my life would be taken from me, there were a few moments of clarity and my entire life flashed before my eyes.  During this time, you know what I saw? I saw myself standing in lines, very long lines, multiple times.  Once I realized I wasn’t going to die, I took a minute to reflect on the fact that I’ve been standing in long lines almost all my life and the majority of the time, it’s been totally voluntary.  I’m actually standing in line RIGHT NOW as I write this. We’ve been in line to ensure we get good seats for Toy Story 3 in IMAX.  I’ve come to the conclusion that my addiction to standing in long lines is due to my childhood and spending numerous summer days in amusement parks across the nation.  Every summer my family would travel to far and distant lands to conquer the biggest, and greatest roller coasters known to man!!! 

Well actually, we would travel from Buffalo, NY to either Sandusky, OH or Toronto for Cedar Point and Canada’s Wonderland, respectively. Okay, so maybe it’s not all corners of the Earth, but to a child a 4hr drive seems like going to China. Anyways, as soon as we arrived at these parks, I’d immediate migrate to the longest line and wait sometimes up to 3hrs for a 90 second thrill.  As you can see, the wait couldn’t have possibly justified the reward.  This habit which was formed at such a young age has apparently carried on throughout my life and I blame none other than my parents for the fact that I’ve turned into a habitual line stander.  They could have easily nipped this in the bud by telling me the line was simply too long, we need to go to another ride.  But no, they chose to be enablers, and I almost lost my life because of it! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Fast forward to launch day of the iPhone 4 and I found myself waking up at 5am, even though I had worked 12hrs the day before, then went straight to the bowling alley after work to start our bowling league.  So needless to say, when I got home on launch day eve, I was exhausted, but yet and still; I mustered up the energy to haul myself to the Apple store for my slice of the future.  However, once I got there, I was greeted with great shock and dismay.  It was like a circus, people had sleeping bags, guitars, portable drums, bond fires, okay well not bond fires, but you get the idea.  It was totally crazy! There were at lease 150-200 people in front of me in the reserved line, and then another 200 in the non reserved line.  Even facing these odds, I somehow felt that I would be able to obtain my new phone before heading off to work.  By the time the Apple store opened, there was probably another 200 people behind me, it was ridiculous, people were coming out in droves to obtain this phone.  As you’ve probably guessed, I went to work disappointed and defeated. To some this may have not been a big deal, but I live my life by the Ricky Bobby philosophy: If you’re not first, you’re last! 

I went back after work hoping the crowd would have died down, I was greatly mistaken. I actually ended up further back in line than I was during my morning visit.  So I accepted total defeat and obtained a voucher to come back in the morning.  As I was leaving, I saw a gentleman that I remembered from my earlier visit.  He was in the non reserved line and had finally made his way to the front of that line; mind you it had been 15 hours since I first saw this guy.  I stopped to talk to him for a moment, and got to see the true effects of the hold that Steve Jobs has on people.  He told me he had been in line since 4am, but it was okay because it was almost over and the iPhone 4 would soon finally be his!!!  I swear, he started to glow a bit when he made this statement, I promise you, the way this guy responded, you would have thought that the gates of heaven were about to open to him.  I was happy for him, even though I wasn’t getting my phone after standing in line for a total of 3+ hours, this guy who lived the struggle was about to be granted his wish and be catapulted into greatness with his new phone!

That’s when it happened, that’s when the announcement that almost caused me my life was made and a man’s dreams were crushed.  Immediately after this guy explained to me his 15hr wait, an Apple representative came out and gathered the crowd’s attention for an important message.  That message? “I’m sorry, but we will no longer be able to accommodate customers who did not pre-order, you will all have to come back and try again tomorrow” OMG, are you serious, I’m standing next to this guy who thought he was about to have the greatest thing in the world happen to him and now you’ve just told him it’s not going to happen?  As I realized exactly what the lady was saying, things started going in slow motion for me, I looked at the guy I was talking to and just saw his mouth drop, beads of sweat started to seed on his forehead and his breathing became labored.  After seeing his delight turn into displeasure, I began growing concerned for my safety and the safety of the hundreds of people standing in line.  I was within arm’s reach of this guy and honestly thought he was going to hit the closest thing to him.  As I backed away, he started shouting “WHAT DOES THIS MEAN” repeatedly and security quickly rushed over to him along with a few Apple employees in an attempt to calm him down.  I didn’t stick around to find out if they were successful.

I was eventually able to get my iPhone the next morning and the craziest thing happened.  I saw the 15 hr disappointment man there as well.  As I was getting in line, he was leaving the store and spotting me.  He exclaimed, “It is finally mines, I have it now, and soon your dreams will come true too my friend.”  However deranged this guy might have been, he was correct, because 30 minutes later I had my iPhone and was in ecstasy.  It was all worth it, and I had another positive reinforcement to encourage my long line standing tendencies.