The iPhone Rapture Is Upon Us

At the entrance to the mall parking lot we were approached by a wild-eyed young man. In days gone by he might have been one of those youthful, stylish silhouettes that danced around spastically in an iPod commercial. But no longer. His long hair, once carefully-tended, had been mussed during the rumble that occurred while waiting in line. And his ironic T-shirt had been torn away - on his chest he'd apparently carved the word "iPhone" with the shards of a broken Shuffle.

"Dude, they totally put me on a waiting list," he sobbed, before collapsing.

We picked our way through the RAZRs and Treos that had been tossed away by early adaptors as we made our way to the Apple Store. But we were beaten back. The crowd was a furious mass of technology nuts, Apple faithful, and folks with vast reserves of disposable income. The mob was an independent thing, with a mind of its own, lurching forward and back. As they crushed into the doorways there were howls of pain as their Volkswagen keys jabbed violently into each other's sides.

A film major was trying to escape with his iLife. He was only buying software, but his waif-like constitution was no match for the mad throng that pressed forward. Bruised, he retreated to the Genuis Bar, where several of the weaker sales associates had taken refuge. They were calling Cupertino for support, their fingers dancing away on the revolutionary interface, but the network, like the fading promise of salvation, had collapsed.

The sound of ringtones. Off in the distance. I'm getting used to it now.