June 2007, San Francisco, California

By Mike Holmes

9:24 a.m.

There is a summer sale happening at Crate and Barrel today. Limited availability. Selected items only. While supplies last.

I know this because for the past hour, I have been sitting in a dusty green folding chair on a downtown sidewalk outside of the popular furniture store, staring in at its colorfully striped loveseats and floral-printed pillows. I will be here for the next nine hours.

It is June 29th and, for those few that do not make a habit of tracking significant consumer product launches, today Apple releases its much-hyped iPhone – a technological marvel that, beyond the guarantee of intense happiness, promises to revolutionize the way in which we communicate.

Joining me on this gray morning are 80 to 90 eager consumers, layered in various coats and sweatshirts, and seated along the fringes of the sidewalk on the pavement or in folding chairs. Some have been camping here since the previous evening, fearful that a night’s rest in their own beds would prevent them from achieving possession of the most advanced cellular phone ever created.

We range in age from acned teenagers to an elderly Asian couple, who will spend today seated on boxes as a favor to their son in Hong Kong, whose quality of life would be in grave peril, were his generous parents not to spend a full day waiting to buy him a new phone.

But despite the disparity in age and cultural background, there is a sense of unity among those camped out here on the concrete. For while yesterday, we may have been bartenders or IT managers or college students enjoying our summer break, today we are line sitters. And we take our jobs very seriously.

12 p.m.

Six hours before the phone will be released for sale, our number stands at around 150, and we span the length of two city blocks. Membership in the line ranges from the organized idlers of iWait.org to individual technophiles to entrepreneurs such as myself that are acting as paid surrogate consumers.

Members of our line occupy themselves with books, MP3 players, and cell phones, which, in only hours will be deemed pathetic and hastily exchanged for the object of our collective affection.

My battered LG, for example, with its primitive wireless technology, its glaring absence of a touch-screen interface, and its striking inability to indicate my location on Google Earth, is losing favor by the minute. It doesn’t understand me like the iPhone will. It doesn’t understand that my needs include access to exotic pornography at any given moment, or the ability to view the scientific consequence of mixing Mentos and Diet Coke when the need arises (and it does more often than you might think).

iPhone knows that when I’m reading The New York Times on my cell phone. Sometimes I want to read it vertically, and sometimes horizontally. This ability, I have long considered to be a universal human right, and it is appalling that it is only now being widely recognized as such.

1:37 p.m.

The line has become a spectacle – a temporary attraction for tourists and department store shoppers that have ventured downtown.

On approach to our line, the typical passerby will first cast a confused squint at the linear mass that borders the street. This look will then change into astonishment as they realize the cause for the congregation and then, finally, a bemused smirk emerges on their face at the collective absurdity of what they are witnessing. It warms their heart to know that people will devote their time to something that they consider trivial.

Some never make it past the first stage of confusion, however. Others are simply disgusted. They don’t understand. When I am using iPhone to record a high-resolution video of my kitten playfully attacking an army of Lord of the Rings figurines, then who will feel absurd? Not me.

News of our brethren at other Apple stores periodically filters through the line. There is the courageous trio of young men who have braved the tough mall parking lots of Walnut Creek for the past 72 hours, their conviction never wavering, despite the temperate climate and occasional wayward shopping cart.

There is the Masonic coordination of iWait.org, its patient fingers spreading their docile grip across America’s shopping centers. And then there is Greg Packer, the Michael Jordan of line sitting, a man whose commitment to maintaining pre-eminence in our field has compelled him to begin the line at the Fifth Avenue New York Apple store five days before iPhone’s scheduled release.

Visionaries like Greg Packer inspire the nation’s best and brightest to invent flimsy excuses for missing work and then spend days sitting idly on city streets, awaiting the rare opportunity to purchase a new product several days before others can. Kudos, Greg.

3:14 p.m.

The wait here has been pleasant, for the most part. The temperature is nice, the company friendly, and there is no shortage of attractive women to gawk at. A few entertainers have made their way down to the corner, apparently aware that here, they have a truly captive audience.

There is a sketch comedy group who laughs their way through a sloppy presentation and then offers to continue “entertaining” later that evening at a paid performance. I feel that I have already paid enough with my attention and perhaps am actually owed a refund.

The next act is a middle-aged clown woman whose favorite trick seems to be lazily staring off into space. She mopes about for a few minutes, until spotting a childish victim upon whom she unleashes the full force of her showmanship. The child, now apparently suffering from epilepsy, retreats in horror and quivers behind the protective legs of her parent.

There are other attempts at engaging our tentative spirit – an Asian boy shouting cheers into a megaphone, a flamboyant pair of cosmetic salesmen offering various pastel-colored lotions and treatments – but these are unnecessary trivialities. We are focused.

Not until we are caressing our newly purchased iPhones with trembling fingers and pressing them to our now tear-streaked cheeks will we be able to enjoy ourselves. It shan’t be long now.

5:54 p.m.

I am overwhelmed with a mixture of giddiness and anxiety. The line has collapsed to one half of its previous size, as all chairs and coolers and other line-sitting accessories have been packed up or hastily abandoned to furniture scavengers and trash men. The store has yet to open, but already eager and confused phone enthusiasts are attempting to push their way in.

The police have arrived and inserted themselves into the turbulent soup of photographers, tourists, and Apple employees that crowd the entrance to the store. As the line moves, confrontations abound between line sitters and our natural enemies, line cutters. Despite our attempts to police the line, it has fattened significantly in the past 10 minutes.

At 6 p.m., we are greeted by the entire staff of the Apple store, who parade around the block, attempting to build excitement through childish screams, clapping and spontaneous cheering. If only they realized that using their power as Apple employees to actually sell me an iPhone is what would get me most excited.

Finally, the doors are opened to a passionate cheer, and the line begins to steadily move. Those in the back of the line stand on their toes, anxiously searching for confirmation that the sale has begun. Conversation is now limited to:

“Has anyone come out with a phone?”

“Have you seen anyone holding an Apple bag or anything?”

“Do you think there will be any left when we get up there?”

“Hey! Did that dude just cut in line?!?”

As I approach the front of the line, I am reminded of Vietnam War footage, in which soldiers are hurriedly waved onto departing helicopters as an enemy closes in. The crowd here is thick, and we in line are protected only by the outstretched arms of frail Apple store employees and one pathetic stanchion that serves more of a symbolic than a practical purpose.

At last, I arrive in front of the line and am quickly waved and pushed in through the open doors of the pristine white Apple store. Inside the store is nearly as chaotic as the scene outside. It resembles a crowded Indian bazaar, with some employees waving iPhone accessories at those waiting in line while others are pulling customers out of line to make purchases on their handheld virtual kiosks. Still others merely stand around, smiling and clapping. An indistinguishable anthem blares from the store’s sound system.

At some point, a young woman wearing a black Apple T-shirt tugs at my elbow and invites me to duck under the stanchion and go off with her. I agree, and after leading me to a safe corner, she asks me what I would like. Stricken with some form of performance anxiety, I fumble with my words for a moment but then loudly blurt out, “Two 8-gigs!”

She nods with understanding, takes my credit card, and promptly disappears, and then immediately reappears holding two small black boxes, which she places in my trembling hands.

The boxes pulsate with heat, and I suddenly feel like I possess the strength of 10 men. I can also read people’s thoughts. Not surprisingly, at this point, everyone’s thoughts are in some way related to their desire for an iPhone.

My credit card is returned, and I stuff the iPhones deep into my shoulder bag with a sense of fear. I then push my way toward the light at the entrance to the store, as if navigating through an overpopulated birth canal. For some reason, I catch myself sucking my thumb.

As I reach the crowd outside, an Apple employee shoots a solemn “congratulations” at me from my right side, and then, after an intense battle for escape, I am in the street, alone with iPhone.

Fighting a nagging compulsion to leverage my purchase for some form of celebrity status, I instead walk back to Crate and Barrel, where I have planned a rendezvous with the woman who will deliver my iPhones to their new parents.

I hesitate for a moment at the door, debating whether I shouldn’t just elope with iPhone to a faraway land, where the reception is strong and the wireless free. But then she appears, hands outstretched and wearing a cold look of formality.

“This is the best thing for everyone,” she says quietly. “You made a promise.”

I hand over the boxes, and my knees grow weak as she says good-bye and walks away. I feel as if I were a man whose love has just left on a plane without hearing all of the deeply held feelings that he had meant to tell her. The elaborate fantasies that had been building in my head throughout my hours in line have been heartlessly extinguished.

My evening is colored with regret and, as I walk to the subway, I feel a vibration in my jacket pocket, and my eyes are flooded with tears.

Mike Holmes is a freelance writer, DJ and professional line sitter living in San Francisco.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 | Email This Post

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