When all said and done, it’s a phone!

In the classic 1970s sitcom, “The Bob Newhart Show,” the star of the series plays a Chicago-based psychologist who shares an office floor with a number of other medical and dental professionals.

When the communal coffee maker breaks down he instructs the office assistant, a ditsy six-foot red head named Carol, to order a new one. Later, when he asks her how the replacement process is going, she replies that it’s hard to decide on which model to purchase since all most of them do is make coffee.

Somewhat perplexed, Bob asks isn’t that the eventual purpose of a coffee-maker?

I recalled this long-ago forgotten vignette while watching the news a few weeks back and an on-the-street reporter was interviewing people waiting on a snaking line, many of whom I later learned had camped out the night before.

Were they waiting for Springsteen tickets?

Front row for Foo Fighters?

$50 orchestra seats to “Hamilton?”

None of the above.

They were lined up outside an Apple store in New York to purchase the newly released iPhone X. Let me repeat that for emphasis, they were waiting – including one person who actually admitted being on line for 36 hours – for Apple’s newest smart phone.

As one who traditionally never understood camping out for concert tickets – or tickets to anything for that matter - the thought of spending a day and a half to pay for an overpriced phone is light years beyond my realm of comprehension.

No, I am not a technology Luddite, I do own a smart phone (Samsung Galaxy for those keeping score at home). Not surprisingly it does everything I need it to do – including – making phone calls.

But it got me to thinking – what is it about this new release that would compel someone to sleep on a sidewalk overnight to get one? So I decided to read one of the online reviews.

And in truth it left me even more confused. Below is an excerpt of one such analysis.

“Holding the iPhone X in my hand triggers a distinct memory of the moment I first cradled the original iPhone. The sensation lingers as I caress the surgical steel band that wraps around the phone and I feel the cool glass back against my palm. Waking the phone snaps me back to the present. My eyes dart across the nearly unblemished Super Retina OLED screen, searching desperately for the home button. There. Is. No. Home. Button.”

Again, I’m not even going to take an uneducated guess about what the above means. All I know is that I’m more than satisfied with my Samsung and plan to keep it for a while. No waiting lines, no hassles.

But as luck would have it over the weekend my coffee maker did break down. But on the bright side at least I can understand the reviews and want it for nothing else than to make coffee.