The addiction that's more expensive than crack.

Yep, I'm talking about the iPhone.

I used to have a Tiny-Phone - or so my friend Smaddy christened it.

Exhibit A: Tiny-Phone.

I also had a BlackBerry bequeathed to me by my office - data only. But I still thought it was pretty sweet (ahem, please see Exhibit A for insight into this reasoning).

But as more and more of my friends brandished iPhones about town, my envy level rose as quickly as ... a teenage boy's libido? Yep, let's go with it - I had a hard-on for the iPhone.

Fast forward to Christmas 2009 - Momma J took pity upon her poor, un-cool, Tiny-Phone carrying children and purchased iPhones as the big present of the season. Complete with Spoiled Child Family Plan.

Huzza! Finally able to count myself among the "cool-kid" ranks, the thing became practically welded to my hand. And I ditched my BlackBerry faster than it would probably take the aforementioned hypothetical teenage boy to prematurely ejaculate if faced with the object of his libido-inducing desire.

But I didn't realize that I'd crossed into full-blown addiction territory until my precious iPhone was stolen out from under me.

At our skeeball bar, no less. My personal Cheers. The bar that hosted hundreds of people for the Brewskeeball National Championship, where iPhones sat charging by bathroom sinks, given nary a second glance, left well enough alone.

I held it together until my visit to the Apple store - more specifically, until my designated "Genius" informed me that I'd have to fork over approximately $500 for the right to replace what had been tragically taken from me, by no fault of my own. (Unless you count leaving an iPhone unattended for 5 minutes a fault of my own. Oh, point taken ... moving on).

Seriously - the iPad had just come out at this time, and was selling for $400. Yet I'd have to pay more than that to purchase an outdated version of a phone that I had already owned for five months?

I trudged home, sans new iPhone. I felt like I was leaving an intervention, told that I'd need to go cold turkey, give up my addiction and be sentenced to rehab.

I called Momma J the next morning from my office, looking for some sympathy. Sympathy that she really wasn't interested in giving - she'd sworn seconds after we unwrapped the iPhones on Christmas morning that they would be the only ones she'd purchase for us.

"If you lose it, that's IT."

And so it was. UNTIL ...

The bacon-loving co-worker from posts past (affectionately known to us as Apwam - don't ask) mentioned that he had an extra one.

What? Who has an extra iPhone just lying around? That they're willing to donate to poor, first-world-problem-afflicted 20-somethings?

Apwam, that's who.

Momma J overnighted that sucker from Austin to NYC and I was back to my Internet-absorbed, iPhone loving ways in no time.

I've managed to hold onto this one so far, and will probably give in and upgrade to the iPhone 4 once I'm eligible (stupid AT&T and its restrictive ways).

Because I - like all of those suckers that waited in the heat for hours on end the day the new model came out - have become an Apple addict.

It's unexplainable ... And I don't care - as most aptly demonstrated by my (and Smaddy and Carstee's) new favorite viral video. I just have to have it.

An iPhone 4 shopper walks into a store:

So here's to the addiction that's more expensive than crack. Maybe someday they will sell them in Walgreens - here's hoping.