I have a special provision written into my AT&T iPhone contract that stipulates I will lose my iPhone 3GS no more than than 2.5 times every twelve months. Seriously, I lost the damn thing last night — don’t ask — and spent two hours looking for it. Then I spent three hours this morning and part of the early afternoon trying to buy a new one without being Cossack-raped by AT&T.

They stuck it to me regardless, charging me $451 including tax for a 16 gig replacement phone despite my having paid $200 two and a half weeks ago for the original. Fuckers wanted to charge me $600 but I finagled them down. I nonetheless feel as if I’ve been anally ravaged by an AT&T telephone pole.

I can’t remember if there was an theft/loss insurance clause offered when I bought the original, but if there was I obviously should have taken it. I know I don’t want to hear any polite 28 year-old AT&T rep with a dweeby haircut tell me about contracts. It’s just a lot of AT&T mumbo-jumbo cooked up so they can fuck people out of a greater share of their hard-earned income. Who would be so bloodthirsty and mercenary? Oh, you lost your phone? So sorry, sir. So let’s see, uhhm…that’ll be triple what you paid two and a half weeks ago if you want another one.

I bought MobileMe when I got the original, and if I’d remembered to install the MobileMe software on the phone itself (instead of on the computer and trusting that MobileMe would be transferred during a synch) I could’ve found the lost phone through the search function. I’ve now installed MobileMe on the new one, of course. Life is pain.