I loved my iPhone. Katsumi gave it to me for my 29th birthday, just one day after the new release came out. I felt way above the curve for the first time in my life. An avid technophobe, I’d previously spent my days grumbling about the uselessness of the cameraphone and saying things like, “Who needs to check their email ALL THE TIME, anyway?” The iPhone changed me, almost overnight. I became rabid for apps, photo-happy, and email outpaced caffeine on my continuum of addiction.If the iPhone were a shoe, it would be a glass slipper, if the iPhone were a wig, it would be platinum blonde. I felt smart, strong, powerful, and undeniably cool. I loved my iPhone.

Time went by, and my ardor only increased. I scoffed at the Gs, proffering my little-used flip camera as proof that nobody really needs video anyway. I even blasted the 4G as the leaks dripped from Apple HQ – iMovie? Teleconferencing? I can barely edit on my 15-inch laptop, never mind a 2-inch touchscreen, and only 10.7% of iPhone users that can benefit from Facetime. The other 89.3% are just calling the guy down the hall to be like “HEY. DUDE. I CAN SEE YOU! Like, on my PHONE!”

Then I touched it.

That square frame, that glistening case, the gentle cool weight of it in your hand. Blazing internet, how could it be? We were still on Edge, in the middle of Camp Bisco, and it was ten times as fast as my old model. Just like that, the slippers broke. I was plain Jane again, Cinderella, all mousy and shagged out sweeping ashes from someone else’s stoop. I can’t afford a new phone, and I’m not eligible for an uprgrade, so I’ll have to live with the ignominy until 2011. Now I know why envy is one of the deadly sins.