For weeks my iPhone hadn’t logged in any visual voicemail.  The only way I knew that there were messages was when my wife called to tell me that my voicemail was full.

For months my phone never rang, with callers going to voicemail (where I would lose them until my wife called to tell me that my voicemail was full).

I persevered, in love with my iPhone.

Then, the week prior to Christmas, all hell broke loose.

My phone wouldn’t fetch data unless I was hooked into wi-fi.  One night I stood in the rain for 10 minutes trying to get a simple app to connect so I could get my car.  And get out of the rain.

But I loved my iPhone.  Sleek, smooth to the touch, a friend indeed.  It was more than a phone – it was a constant companion, my alarm clock, my window to Twitter and Facebook, my email client and my music player.

Convinced this was a case of an old phone, I took it to the Genius Bar.  Nope, I was told, the phone’s just fine.  Call AT&T to see if they can do something on their end with the connectivity.

You’re laughing now.  Mocking me.  Sit down and hush up – I hate it when proven to be blind.

So I called A&T to see if their network was having unusual problems, especially in light of the fact that I knew they’d pulled the iPhone from their online store for about a day post-Christmas.

Yup, I was told.  AT&T has knocked down a bunch of towers in New York City and is in the process of re-building them.

Waitaminit … they’d KNOCKED DOWN CELL PHONE TOWERS IN NEW YORK CITY?

Oh, and here’s the best part.

They had no clue when they’d be ready to go.  In the interim, New York City service is marked as “severely degraded.”

So my iPhone was going to be near-bricklike for an unknown amount of time, calling out to cell towers that no longer were and would not be for quite some time.

Was my iPhone awesome?  Yes it was.

Is my iPhone now deactivated, costing me an Early Termination Fee?  Yes it is.

Welcome to my life with Droid.