I've wanted an iphone for quite a while now, right? Obviously...

I finally broke down when the 3G iphones were released. Went over to the AT&T store a block from my house (since there are no actual Apple stores in Traverse City) after work on Friday, just to get the news that they were indeed out of them but I could buy one and they'd get it shipped to the store and call me when it came in.

So I did this, and dreamed happy dreams of unlimited data and shiny new 3rd party apps available on the itunes store for the whole weekend (The National Cherry Festival was this weekend, so it was a long one.) They sent me an e-mail from their iCare system (@cingular.com no less! c'mon AT&T! Lose the legacy branding and embrace the corporate oneness!) which detailed my order and gave me a link to click on where I could check on the status of my order. 5 to 7 days. I was like.. Cool! No problem!

Then on Monday night, I got another e-mail from iCare which said that my order had shipped and would be delivered to the AT&T store I'd placed the order at. I excitedly went to the order status page and punched in my order number and my zip code, and sure enough, the order had been shipped and there was even a tracking number! So I clicked the tracking number, FedEx's tracking page indicated that indeed it had shipped and that the package was in transit! Checked it again the following morning, and the package had arrived at the FedEx facility in Traverse City! Hooray, right? Well, sort of!

I spent all morning at work Tuesday intermittently hitting reload on the FedEx tracking page, saw it go onto the truck for delivery, and finally at 1pm saw it was delivered! Waited 30 minutes for the phone call, got impatient and decided to run home for lunch.

Lunch eaten, I got back on my scooter and rode the long way over to the AT&T store to see what was up (3 blocks instead of 1.) When I got there, I was greeted by a smiling face who, when asked about the status of my iphone, said that they weren't there yet. I told her I'd seen on the FedEx site that they had been delivered and signed for, and then she said (???) "I don't know if they were shipped next day or what, but when they get here we'll call you." -- I think I might have lost control of myself here, as I might have raised my voice somewhat when I said that I had specifically seen on the tracking page that they had been delivered and signed for! So they must have been delivered to some OTHER 427 S. Union in Traverse City! (More likely: they were still in the box waiting for some paper pusher to process them and assign sales people to call the customers and arrange for setup.)

Anyways, I walked out of there defeated. I knew they were there, but there was nothing I could do. I'm still waiting.

Update: Got the phone! It turns out when the first batch of phones came in, some mouthbreathing paper pusher put the wrong persons phone number on mine. Sooooo, I had to wait an extra day for that persons phone to come in so I could get it. Nice job, AT&T! /sarcasm.