Not that anyone’s counting but me, but I’ve now entered into my second month of waiting for my iPhone to arrive. OK, so it’s not all that bad. Officially it’s really Business Day No. 5 of my up-to-21-day iPhone delivery waiting period that AT&T requires to fulfill my order (No. 8 in nonbusiness-day count, but that’s just silly fantasizing).

Quick recap: I opted to hook myself up through AT&T because my company offers a 20% discount on calling plans, and because my hating of waiting in lines is quantified when it involves an Apple store at any of its greater L.A. venues. That’s right: I would rather wait 21 days of my life than 90-120 minutes at The Grove/Beverly Center/Glendale Galleria/Century City

But there is a method to such madness. See, if I went the Apple Store route and emerged with the precious device after a couple hours, I would also exit with some requisite and overpriced accessories because I’d be unable to stop myself from rationalizing the expenditure of up to:

  • $34.95 for a protective skin within which to wrap the device in silicone-y safety, and
  • $19.95 for an anti-scratch screen protector

With tax that’d be another $60, along with the priceless pit-of-the-stomach sucker-punched feeling of being ripped off a staggering amount.

So since I have all this leisure time between the order’s placement and the phone’s delivery, I went online and clicked “buy” on a two-fer deal of a skin and a screen protector I found for $9.95 (tax and shipping brought it up to $15.12).

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The duo arrived yesterday. The skin even features a cardboard insert that allows me to pretend it’s an actual phone, FTW. And the screen guard’s “Engrish” translation on its packaging (at right above) has an entertainment value that makes it well worth the purchase. Some highlights:

  • “Suits for all digital products LCD”
  • “Guards ayainst tarnishes”
  • “static adgerence, no remainder”
  • “Toppest Optician From Japan”