On this day, ten years ago, the original iPhone arrived in stores. I’ve long been an Apple fanboy so it was no surprise that I lined up to get one of the very first one of these joyful slabs of tech in Los Angeles at its debut.

The iPhone changed the world, and here’s a MySpace blog from 2007 to prove how it almost ruined my marriage. (Also, sorry about the dated Chris Benoit reference. If it helps, think of it as watching an SNL rerun with Darrell Hammond doing a Clinton sketch. It probably won’t help, though.)

I am the proud owner of an Apple iPhone.

I love everything about it: the things it does, the way it looks, how I can actually get a signal in my own damn house. (I had a phone with Verizon Wireless, but I could only get one bar of signal if I stood with my head against the back window of my house. Nice. Where’s that Elvis Costello-looking douchebag in the green jumpsuit and all his thousands of network peeps? Not at my house, that’s where.)

But aside from loving the little thing, I’m a geek and gadget freak. If you aren’t one, then you won’t understand my problem. A very large part of the experience of any new gadget (especially one as heralded as the iPhone) is getting it home and unboxing it. Sometimes you can’t even wait to get it home, you unbox it right there in your car at the mall.

So to my great pleasure I was able to get an iPhone on opening day, Friday, June 29. Picked it up at 10pm on my way to a gig at the Laugh Factory. So I had to debate whether or not to open it then or get it home first to activate it and enjoy all the features. I chose to wait. But that meant I had to wait another three hours. Oooh, sweet anticipation!

Upon arriving at the Laugh Factory, Dane Cook showed me his iPhone that he just picked up. I guess he couldn’t wait. But he couldn’t do anything to it except “Slide To Unlock” until he got it home.

So after doing the show, (I can’t even remember how the show went, I was so awash in geek joy) I rushed home to get my own iPhone unwrapping underway. Ran into the house, removed the box from the bag and set it down on the coffee table in the living room. This was going to be awesome!

“But wait, I should probably wash my hands first,” I thought to myself. Can’t have all of this outside world grime getting on my precious new toy. And off I went to the bathroom to use the Bath & Body Works Fresh Pineapple Anti-bacterial Moisturizing Hand Soap with Green Tea Extract and Shea Butter. I would have used the Ivory soap I usually use, but I decided to go with my wife’s freaky chick-soap to kill all the germs and make my hands lovingly soft so as not to mar the shiny new surface of my iPhone.

And when I get back into the living room, there’s my wife, holding the unwrapped iPhone in the air. Turning from side to side, getting her damn fingerprints all over it. “Is this the iPhone?” she asks.

Aaaaaaaiiiigggghhh!

“Curse you, woman! I will stab you in the butthole with a breadknife,” I scream on the inside. But out loud, I said, “Uh, yeah.”

She looks at me and says, “Oh, it’s cool, I guess.”

All this time I had been waiting, drooling, dreaming had been for nothing! It’s like dating a virgin for a year, marrying her, and on your wedding night you walk into your bedroom to consumate your marriage, only to find her naked and straddling the bellhop saying, “Oh, this is what the big fuss is all about?”

Perhaps if Chris Benoit had gone off the deep end a couple of weeks later, I might suspect his wife had opened his iPhone before he got to. But now we’ll never know.

If there are any lawyers reading this, please let me know if I have a case for annullment. Even 5 years into a marriage, this has got to qualify.

Wow, such memories. MySpace? Home-only activation? ANTI-BACTERIAL BATH & BODY WORKS SOAP? Oh, how the world has changed. Happy birthday iPhone, congratulations Apple and apologies to my wife. I don’t know how she tolerates me.