Tuesday June 10, 2008
	The iPhone 2.0.
	When I pick her up in in my vintage Caddy she kisses me and while she is kissing me she holds my chin and I am trying to break free of her hold by moving my head left and then right but it does no good.  When she is done kissing me she releases her powerful girl grip and says: "The new iPhone is only $199." When her mouth pulls away from mine her spit (or mine) drips down my chin and onto the paper bag that contains two Kripsy Kreme donuts. "I can finally buy one," she says. I am wiping the spit from the bag using a now darkened Wal-Mart receipt (heat turns the receipts black and then the numbers and letters eventually fade) and while I am wiping I say: "Only two hundred bucks?" Her name is Lee Ann Hatcher.  The Lee part is the truth and the Ann in the middle is genuine but I altered her last name.   (It is not Hatcher. I added two letters after the second H for the sake of anonymity.) Lee Ann is 18.   The beautiful and unspoiled daughter of a vacant, dazed, raging hag I once dated.   I say: "How 'bout a glazed blueberry donut?" She says: "The iPhone comes out in July." She's biting into the donut and smiling at me and while she's chewing and while she's smiling I am biting and chewing too and while I am chewing I am thinking: (Start Norm's internal dialog): IPhone 2.0.  Big fuckin' deal.  They're like pocket-sized charge card swipers made for the personal use of one hypnotized idiot.  They are pocket-sized charge card swipers.   Buy a video.  Buy a record.  Buy a new and exciting freshly developed iPhone application.  A dollar here, another dollar there.  Buy, buy, buy.  If they removed the telephone portion of the iPhone it'd be like owning a beeper-like gadget that stays live and online 24 hours a day seven days a week direct to the ordering department of the Home Shopping Channel.  They probably added the telephone portion to the iPhone just to make it look like a legitimate necessity.  Would anyone carry it around if all you could do was buy a record or a video or a iPhone application?  More money for the 3G plan at least $10 higher a month than the dialup speed you get with the Edge network.  Two-year contracts at almost a hundred dollars a month times twelve months equals $1200 a year and that doesn't include the videos, records, ringtones and phone applications purchased.  Go over your allotted AT&T minutes and that means more money.  Break your AT&T contract and you'll shell out even more dough.  Fuck me.  There's a reason it fits so easily into your pocket only one pocket away from your wallet.  It's prime directive is to rake in cash.  The fuckin' thing will cost around $1500 a year or more to own.  What kind of a person would wait in a line just so that they could shell out $200 or more for a device designed to cost its owner six to ten times that amount over the course of a year?  $3000 for two years?  It a fuckin' personal ATM machine for Steve Jobs and AT&T and they want their stylish miniature ATM in every pocket in America.  Jeez, it's embarrassing how eager consumers are to get into debt beyond what they ever fathomed so as to appear be a part of something. (End Norm's internal dialogue)               Says Lee Ann: "Norm?" When concocting and engaging in internal dialogues with myself I oftentimes lose myself and when I hear my 18-year-old call my name I see she's finished her donut so I say:   "Was that a good donut?" She says: "It was a good donut, Norman." I say: "I like donuts." She says:   "I like donuts, too." I say: "Donuts are something special ." She says: "My mother used to buy donuts at a shop in Clearwater that sold expired donuts at a discount." I'm thinking that her mother is a stale donut eating whore and I want to tell her that her mother once blew me behind a Dunkin' Donuts but I don't and instead I say: "You can get some real deals at those places." I put the car in drive and pull out of the parking spot and push the KISS tape into the 8-track player of my Cadillac and while the music is coming from the speakers I say: "I've been thinking of getting an iPhone, too." She says: "We can text one another love notes." She is Lee Ann Hatcher.  She is the beautiful and unspoiled 18-year-old daughter of a vacant, dazed, raging hag I once dated. Again she says: "We can text one another love notes, Norman." My vintage Cadillac came with an onboard CB radio and I am talking into the microphone telling a woman coming from the CB radio speaker that she is a whore and when I release the button on the microphone I say to Lee Ann: "I don't think your mother would like that."   PREVIOUS   HOME   NEXT