Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

The toilets in my apartment spontaneously overflowed, and then I got an iPhone. That’s the short version of the story, but really, the long version is funnier.

The Friday before last, both our toilets backed up simultaneously, spewing water onto the floors and carpet. A plumber was called to investigate. He and his girlfriend (hey, Friday night!) found no identifiable problem with the plumbing. We hypothesize that someone else in the building flushed something they shouldn’t have. Exactly what this something might have been remains a mystery. If it was the motley crew of grad students on the first floor, I’m guessing they tried to flush all their PBR empties. If it was the well-dressed but hollow clique of law students on the second floor, I’m guessing cocaine.

We were lucky in the sense that nothing particularly disgusting came flowing out of our toilets that night, just water. But seeing anything come out of the toilet, no matter how clear and water-looking, did not set me at ease, because I know what goes into the toilet on a daily basis. A mop, bucket, and bleach were purchased, and it was left to me to clean the floors. At the end of this time-consuming if not entirely unpleasant process, I got down on all fours and wiped the floors dry with a towel. My jeans got wet, but I planned to toss them in the laundry with the various towels I had just used to do the cleaning.

If only I had remembered that my phone was still in the left front pocket of those jeans.

I’d like to take a moment to remember my dearly departed Motorola RAZR, which served me admirably for over three years. It was everything I needed from a phone, with its slim form factor, generously sized screen (for a phone of its type), large, backlit keypad made of actual metal, and handy Bluetooth interface. The RAZR gave me all the features I wanted and tucked the rest somewhere out of the way, where I would never be bothered by them. The last week has given me a new appreciation for just how well designed and meticulously thought out the RAZR was. Motorola should be liquidated for so thoroughly botching the opportunity that the RAZR gave them. To be clear, I mean liquidated with some sort of bubbling, steaming acid. Then their assets should be sold to Nokia.

On the inside of most phones, near the battery, you will find a small white dot. This dot gradually turns red when exposed to water, so that if you accidentally launder your phone and try to pass it off as a spontaneous hardware failure the sales clerk will know the truth. The sales clerk at my local AT&T at&t store was kind and extremely helpful, and I had no desire to deceive him. He said he’d never seen the moisture indicator turn that red. I remembered checking on the laundry the night before and peeking happily at the white, sudsy vat of water. At the time it was soothing. If I had only known.

I immediately inquired about upgrading to an iPhone, but the kind and helpful sales clerk explained that since I had only been an AT&T at&t customer for seven years and I had purchased this particular RAZR just eleven months ago, I wasn’t due for an upgrade. As such, AT&T at&t would do the reasonable thing and tack a $200 markup onto the price of the iPhone. Why? Because the contract goblins at at&t have to rape angels in order to feel, that’s why.

The clerk went on to tell me that the best he’d be able to do is process me as an “exceptional upgrade,” which would grant me access to a bizarre sort of semi-rebate on certain phones. Not the full rebate price, the one they print in big letters, but one of the numbers listed lower down on the display tag. One of the more depressing numbers.

Dirty bunch of angel rapers.

I opted to buy the Sony Ericsson W518a. It had a RAZR-like form factor and I rather liked the look of its external display (I use my cell phone as a watch and alarm clock, so this is important). I didn’t much care for the media player buttons that adorned the front, but I reasoned (incorrectly, it turns out), that you could turn off the music player features. After a mere three hours with the damn thing, I could confidently say that I have never hated a single piece of electronics more than this. The phone’s manifold failings will be catalogued elsewhere.

I returned the phone the very next day and exchanged it for something even simpler: the Samsung SGH-a237. It had a small screen and aesthetically displeasing software, but it felt surprisingly good in my hand and, most importantly, it didn’t try to pretend like it was going to replace my iPod. Had I been eligible for the proper upgrade price, this would have cost me around thirty bucks. No big deal. I paid slightly more than that for my RAZR (may it rest in peace). But I wasn’t eligible for the full upgrade price. The best the contract goblins could give me was a $100 rebate. On a phone that, for no apparent reason, cost $250. I lived with the phone for a week, but by the next Friday my buyer’s remorse was on the verge of tearing into our reality and manifesting as a physical ooze.

So, cut to yesterday at the Best Buy downtown. The week before, just after my phone took a bubble bath, I found myself in this Best Buy on unrelated business, and it was made clear to me that they could offer better deals on an iPhone than my local retailer. I went into the Best Buy, explained the situation to a sales clerk named Kevin, and then had the following conversation:

KEVIN:  So, are you looking to buy the iPhone 3G, or the 3GS?

JON:  Well, that depends on the prices.

KEVIN:  One hundred for the 3G, two hundred for the 3GS.

JON:  Taken aback by the lower prices, remembering what his local retailer had said. Are you absolutely sure about that?

KEVIN:  Yup.  Two hundred.

JON:  You’re absolutely positive that’s the price I’m eligible for. The two hundred dollar one.

KEVIN:  Yup.  I just need you to bring in all the hardware from the phone you’ve got now. Phone-

JON:  Puts his phone on the table. Tada!

KEVIN:  Cables, charger-

JON:  Daaah crap! The charger!

Both wait a beat as Jon weighs the pros and cons of the trip to and from his apartment across town, a half hour each way.

JON:  I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t move.

I returned to the Best Buy fifty minutes later, where, against my advice, Kevin had moved. His manager was standing behind the counter. I once again explained the situation. After looking at my phone, the manager explained that it isn’t a model they carry, so they can’t exchange it. I politely explained to the manager that, not one hour ago, before I had gone an hour out of my way just to retrieve the charger for this very exchange, the one that doesn’t seem to be happening now, Kevin had failed to mention that policy. Had I shown him my phone, the manager asked? Yes, I definitely had. We can’t help you, he said, but there’s an at&t store a few blocks away.

Kevin probably isn’t cut out for sales. He may, however, have a future in angel raping.

The store a few blocks away, which I walked to in the kind of weather that warps reality, couldn’t help me either. See, I purchased my phone from an at&t licensed store, not a core store. At this point, I had been trying to get this iPhone for just over three hours, and my anger was such that I could almost move objects with my mind. I returned to the kind, helpful sales rep at my local store and told him I’d be willing to swallow the price tag of an iPhone. He said he was out of stock.

Without blinking, because I had lost the ability to blink, I asked him for a “contract reversal,” a term that had been floated at me several times that day. He takes his phone back and presses the Undo button on my contract, making it as if I never entered his store. I feel bad for depriving a genuinely nice guy of some business, but I am officially beyond patience.

Which is a shame, because I then had to wait for the bus to take me to the nearest “core” at&t store. From here, things proceed fairly well. Initially I’m quoted the too-good-to-be-true $200 price tag, only to have the kind and helpful clerk realize that a contract goblin clause is in play, and she has no choice but to charge me that ridiculous markup.

Let’s step back for a moment. Even with the rebate, which would take the contract goblins around three months to process (presumably after defiling a newborn puppy), the cheapest, simplest phone I could get would run me over one hundred dollars. So let’s see. That means the iPhone will cost roughly four times as much as the simpler phone. So, the critical question is:  Is the iPhone four times better?

Having now used the iPhone for a day, the answer is an emphatic yes. When I plunked down the cash for my first iPod, around four years ago, I worried about it being worth the money. After using it on one commute, I thought, “Yup.  Worth it. Every God damned penny.” It’s the same thing with the iPhone. If you’re with at&t and aren’t eligible for a rebate that makes your next phone essentially free, why would you bother blowing your cash on anything but an iPhone? It’s the best phone I’ve ever used, the best iPod I’ve ever bought, and I’m already loving the mobile email and automatic sync with iCal. Worth. Every. Penny.

But the at&t contract goblins are still a bunch of dirty, dirty angel rapers.