Waiting for Your iPhone: Five Ways to Handle the Unbearable Stress

June 19, 2007
By

James Maguire

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Even saying the name – iPhone – makes you kind of anxious. You get nervous and sweaty and your palms start trembling. Your left leg is shaking and it just won’t stop.

Here’s the hard part: you gotta wait. There’s no choice. The iPhone is not yet available. Or worse, maybe when you read this, it’s out in stores, and other people are having all the fun – but yours is back ordered.

Oh, the agony.

And to think, every blog, every tech magazine, heck every national magazine, is foaming at the mouth about the iPhone. They have photos of it. They say it’s cool. They say you’ll be cool if you buy one.

You’ve tried to stop thinking about it, but every time you turn around, it’s there. It’s like an episode of “Twilight Zone”: “You enter a parallel universe, where all news outlets are fixated upon a small handheld gadget that no one has yet seen…”

Accepting the Absurdity of Your Desire

Of course, part of you wonders why you crave one. The iPhone is essentially a cell phone, and you already have a cell phone. You bought it for $49, or less than one tenth the price of the iPhone, at $499-599.

But, you say to yourself, attempting to understand your own irrational desire, the iPhone also surfs the Web.

Yet the rational part of your brain answers: yeah, so what? Your PC – which you’re in front of all day – surfs the Web with a full-size screen. And this new technology called Wireless allows your lowly laptop to surf everywhere except a plane at 30,000 feet.

But still, your inner child shrieks, the iPhone is a music and video player! Just like the iPod! And I want one!

At this point you try to forget that you’ve already plunked down $300 for an iPod. You bought it in 2003, and it broke 14 months later. So you bought another for $250, then you bought your spouse one (the deluxe one, of course) for another $300. You don’t want to admit you’ve spent $850 on Apple music players, which is enough for a lifetime.

Admitting You Need Help

Finally, you give up the process of being rational. As far as you can tell, you want – you need – an iPhone for the following reasons:

• It’s new!

• It’s shiny!

• Its name starts with the letter ‘i’!

(Put an i in front of anything and it seems cool. You don’t like chores, but what about an iChore? Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? How about an iRoot Canal? I want one!)

Knowing that you’re resigned to days of anxious waiting, there are a few things you can do to handle the stress. As a public service, we at Datamation offer the following list of survival strategies:

1) Use Creative Visualization.

Buy a can of black spray paint and paint your existing cell phone black (like an iPhone that’s turned off). Then take off your glasses and hold it at arms length. You’ll notice no real difference between your painted Nokia and your not-yet-arrived iPhone – they both make phone calls. Look at your painted Nokia lovingly and say, ‘Wow, my iPhone is really cool. I’m so glad it finally arrived.”

Note: Some unfortunate individuals report this strategy only works for 5-7 minutes, then their leg muscles start trembling again.

2) Form a Support Group.

Gather an intimate group of like-minded iPhone-starved individuals – you’ll have no trouble finding them – and find a private place. Then stand up and address the group: “Hi, my name is Bob, and I’m an iPhone nut-job.” Everyone will answer: “Hi Bob.”

Between meetings, if you start to get overly anxious, just make a phone call. This will help reassure you that life is possible without an iPhone – at least for short periods.

3) Find a Higher Power.

We humans think we’re strong enough to wait for the iPhone by ourselves. We’re not. We need the help of a powerful major deity, in this case Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Get a black light poster of Mr. Jobs. Put it up in your bedroom. Close your eyes and chant softly: “Oh Steve, all-powerful maker of the most beautiful iPhone, please send me my wonderful gadget. Please send it, Steve. Please send it now.”

If the poster actually responds, you’re in deep trouble. If your room remains silent, you know you have the mental health to wait at least one more day.

4) Strike a Match.

Part of what makes it difficult to wait for your iPhone is the stress of hanging on to that $500 until you can finally give it to Apple.

If having the cash gets to be too much of a bummer, carefully remove it from your purse, wallet, or wall safe. Hold the ten fifty-dollar bills (or twelve fifties if you’re dreaming of the 8 GB model) in your hand, and strike a match. Hold the fifties over the small flame, until they go gloriously up in smoke. (You may need to open a window.)

Enjoy the sense of lightness you feel. Take comfort in the fact that you’ll get to do this again the moment your iPhone arrives.

5) Take a Trip.

This one’s no joke – it’s a real suggestion from a salesperson in a Mac store. I asked her what I could do if I’m having trouble waiting for an iPhone. She looked at me, a little confused for a moment, then said, “I recommend taking a trip to the Islands – maybe Jamaica.” She pointed out that I could lay on the beach for days and not have a single thought about telephones.

She seemed to be suggesting I could simply relax. But I’m not sure. Go days without thinking of the iPhone? No, I don’t think that’s possible. In fact, I’m sure it’s not. Even now, my hands are starting to shake, my breathing is shallow…