This morning at work I took off my coat and reached for my iPhone.  It wasn’t there.

Do not put your iPhone in a case that clips to your belt.

I noticed that carrying it in my shirt pocket tended to drag the front of my shirt down.  In a perfect geek world this wouldn’t matter, but my friends confided in me that it didn’t look flattering.  The iPhone is, by today’s standards, a rather large and heavy mobile phone — with good reason, it’s the ultimate gadget — and I saw the need to be a bit tidier in my appearance, so I found a nice leather iPhone case that clipped to my belt.

It worked out for about a month.  This morning, however, I was putting something in the back seat of my car, and the case came unclipped from my belt.  I didn’t notice it was gone until I got to work.

You have to understand — ever since I got this iPhone G3 16GB, it’s become a symbiotic part of my system.  An external portion of my brain and senses.  I use it for everything.  It never leaves my person.  I sleep next to it.

At first I didn’t panic.  I thought that I must have left it on the kitchen table.  I’d done that once before.  No big deal.

Then I remembered the part about putting something in the back seat of my car, and knew it could have popped off my belt while doing so.  That meant it could be sitting alone, abandoned, on the cold cement floor.

My iPhone.

I left work immediately, feeling sick, knowing that if it was indeed on the floor of the garage, there was a chance I could have run over it.  I imagined it smashed there, dead.  I wondered what the heck I would do.  How could I live without it?  I mean, I’ve already invested lots of money in software, lots and lots of time setting things up.  My bank account, my passwords, my shopping list … not to mention all the fun and nifty apps.  The GPS mapping system, which I had only recently come to depend upon.

So I got home, opened the garage door, and saw it there on the ground.

Worse, there were definite tire tracks on the case.

I FREAKING RAN OVER MY FREAKING IPHONE!

(“Freaking” is not the F-word I was using, nor is it the one I originally typed here.)

I have never ruined a camera, a radio, a stereo, a PDA, an iPod, or any of my beloved little gadgets.  Ever.  EVER EVER.

This was my favorite one of ALL TIME, and I RAN IT OVER WITH MY CAR.

Staring at the ruins of the smashed screen, I had a kind of religious experience.  This must be a message to me from God.  This is God’s way of telling me, I am way too attached to a gadget.

Gathering up my poor smashed iPhone, and my sick mess of emotions, I drove mournfully back to work.  I called Apple.  I called AT&T.  I searched eBay.  I examined my options.

Repair it:  $279
Replace it:  $399
Cut my losses and cancel my account:  $170
Buy a cheapo no-frills replacement phone:  $40

And then to my amazement, my phone rang.  My iPhone.  I picked it up, slid my finger across the broken screen (from memory) and lo and behold I was talking to someone.  After that I started fiddling with it.  The thing still works!  Only the screen is broken.

That says a lot about the case.  I don’t know of many phones that you can run over with your car and then still make a call on it.

So, technically, my iPhone isn’t dead — it’s crippled.  I still haven’t decided what to do.  I’m still wondering if the thing is a boon or a hindrance in my life.  I love the thing, but ever since I got it my writing projects — especially my new novel — have suffered.

I may just say goodbye to it, and learn from the experience.

Don’t love the tool more than the task.

I’m not sure what the heck this is but it looks fun.

I hear it from all sides.  I feel it myself.  Pride, and a feeling of belonging.

A friend sends me a picture of himself holding his new iPhone.  "I just got it a few days ago.  I can’t keep my hands off it."

Another makes this comment:  "The fact that I can’t get an iPhone hurts my soul."

Me?  I held out as long as I could.  Finally I justified it by telling myself it will be like carrying around a phone, an iPod, a PDA, a camera and an alarm clock in one neat little package.  And it is — it’s handier than a Star Trek Tricorder.  It does everything but shoot laser beams and open my beer.

Here’s the thing:  it does MORE than I thought it could.  Way more.  It’s even handier than I’d thought in my wildest dreams.

Also, I’ve bought more software in the past month than I have in my entire life.  More music, too.  And I’ll tell you why — it’s insidious — the software is priced low enough for impulse buying, and it’s always at your fingertips.  You don’t have to sit at the computer studying what would be the best for the money, and you don’t have to drive to the nearest software store.

During idle minutes at the doctor’s office, for instance, I realized I had a really good signal, and sat there browsing the App store for new things … and there’s always new things.  I spent twenty dollars without even thinking about it.

I write blogs on it (not this one, it’s too long and I’d go nuts trying to type all this on the little thumb keyboard).  I keep up with friends on MySpace and Facebook.  Every twenty minutes I compulsively check my email.

It’s my alarm clock in the morning.  Its my meeting reminders.  It’s my source for weather and news.  It’s my full blown English dictionary, and a Wikipedia portal.  It’s my life’s soundtrack stereo.

I balance my checking account on it.  Keep my todo lists.  My shopping list.

I use it as a map.  I’M NEVER LOST.

Keep up with my Netflix queue.

Convert units of measurement.  Network through LinkedIn.

I even have a program that tells me how far away the last lightning strike was.

The one thing I hardly ever do with it, it turns out, is make a phone call.

Other people who have them, they whisper to me in conspiratorial tones.  What games do I have?  Movies?  And always the question, "What is the coolest new app?"

Before I got mine, I used to be annoyed when I’d get an email where at the bottom it said, "Sent from my iPhone."  For the first few days, I took it off mine, so it didn’t say that.  Then … I have to admit this … I put it back on.

I couldn’t help myself.  It’s like saying, "Ha ha!  Look!  I have the coolest toy, and I want to brag, brag, brag!"  Now when I get email from others that feature that bragging line down at the bottom I feel kindred to them.  We’re brothers and sisters.

We belong to the same cult.

The cult of the iPhone.

And don’t say that it isn’t.  Look at it in the press.  Watch them yakking on and on about it on blogs like Lifehacker.  Or even, er … here.  Yes.

It’s a cult alright.

And I haven’t been in love with a piece of hardware like this since my very first computer, way back in the early 80’s.

The iPhone is beyond a groovy gizmo.  It’s life changing.  If they ever come out with a keyboard for it, it would replace my laptop.

I mean, after all, a laptop is no where near this cool.