So I held off on the first iPhone and took loads of shit for it while I was doing Fake Steve. Example: I was giving a speech in LA and mentioned my BlackBerry, so during the Q&A some clever prick put up his hand and said, “I would like to know why is Steve Jobs using a BlackBerry and not an iPhone?” My response: “Because I got the BlackBerry from Forbes, for free, and I couldn’t see buying an iPhone and carrying both of them. And, um, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not actually Steve Jobs, you dumb fuck.”

Okay, not a smart thing to do when you’re giving a speech. But I’m still learning. One thing I learned from that experience is that if you call someone a dumb fuck, other people tend not to ask any questions. The Q&A part of that show was therefore mercifully short.

But I digress.

Anyway, the BlackBerry went back to Forbes, and I finally bought an iPhone. I got it this week, on Monday. A salestard named Garrett at the Burlington Mass. Apple store was very helpful but somehow managed to activate my account using the wrong email address — he left out the underscore. So some other poor bastard named Dan Lyons started getting all my mail from AT&T. (Thank you, wrong Dan Lyons, for alerting me.) Anyway, I went online, created an account at AT&T wireless, and changed the email address on the account to the correct one. Still, the Wrong Dan Lyons kept getting mail for me from AT&T. I tried getting through to AT&T phone support but was warned about “extended wait times” and they weren’t kidding. Three different times I walked around holding the phone and listening to the hold music until I couldn’t take it anymore and just gave up. Meanwhile, ever more annoyed missives from Wrong Dan Lyons kept arriving in my inbox. Thanks, fucker.

Finally I traveled out to the horrible Burlington mall where I bought the iPhone and was stopped at the door of the Apple store by an incredibly prickish Apple “concierge” (that’s Spanish for “smug useless dickhead”) who heard me out and then told me, politely, to go fuck myself because Apple couldn’t fix the email address on my account. I was like, Dude you’re the retards who typed it in wrong. Shouldn’t you fix it? He told me, again, very politely, to go fuck myself. I was like, Dude do you know who I am? I invented Fake Steve. Have you heard of him? He was like, Fake who? What? Huh? He then suggested I go bother the morons at the AT&T store in the same mall. I did, and there I was met by an even more developmentally disabled cretin who said AT&T couldn’t help me either. I said if Apple can’t help me and AT&T can’t help me, what am I supposed to do? He shrugged. I mentioned Kafka. He said, Huh? Meanwhile my three-year-old son had spotted the Rainforest Cafe next door and decided this would be a great time to throw a fit about wanting to go to the “jungle.” I caved, as I usually do, and left the AT&T store and tried to get a table at Rainforest, only to be informed by the girl at the hostess desk (nattily attired in a forest ranger outfit) that there would be a forty minute wait for the shitty overpriced food.

Try explaining that to a three-year-old and his twin sister. Oh joy.

Next day I called AT&T phone support and finally got through. Woman assures me the email has been fixed. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, dear Apple and AT&T: You suck.

And by the way, to Garrett the salestard at the Burlington Mall Apple store and to the concierge douchebag — I’m coming back with my iPhone and I’m going to take your photos and put them on my blog, assholes. I might even do some nasty things to them with Photoshop. I’m sorry, but you brought this upon yourselves.

Peace out.