Salty the iPhone emerged from the ocean with super powers, like advice-giving, fiscal foresight, and a very advanced vocabulary. Pose your iPhone-related and/or philosophical quandries at askaniphone@gmail.com.

My dad won't let me get an iPhone 3G so iHave an iProblem because iAm too young. What should iDo?

First, relax. No one ever died because they didn't have an expensive cell phone that can't even stay charged longer than a day. I got dunked carelessly in the ocean, friggin' died, then was completely disassembled, soaked in alcohol, and eventually revived to slave tirelessly for a new master who makes me write an advice column. And I survived.

But on to your question. You don't say how old you are, but I can say with confidence that like every single kid in this country, you need to get yourself a galldarn job. Too young to toil in the salt mines? Get a paper route or something. Mow lawns. Start a consulting firm. Learn how to carve those sweet ice sculptures; people make bank doing that.

Open a free checking account, then a high-yield savings account somewhere like ING Direct. You'll need three accounts: retirement, long-term, and short-term savings.

At your age, 40 percent or so of your after-tax earnings should go into your retirement savings. You'll stash that away until you get $3,000 and then open a Roth IRA with Vanguard and buy some low-cost index mutual funds. Keep making contributions to this Roth IRA yearly, at least 15 percent of your income, to your retirement savings, so you can reap the benefits of compounded interest. You're going to be rich.

Another 40 percent of your take-home scratch can go in the long-term savings. This is for your college tuition. You might want to look into a 529 plan or maybe a CD ladder depending on how old you are, but you need to be stashing away money for college, dude, seriously. (But it's worth it. Parties, videogames, pizza for breakfast.)

That leaves you with 20 percent of your salary left, which you can stick in your short-term savings account until you can afford your iPhone. If you're on an individual plan, that's going to cost you at least $70/month for two years as well. Plus, the taxes and fees on a cell phone are pretty ridiculous, and you youths love that text messaging for some reason, so budget $100/month for the phone bill.

So that means that you should really be earning about $500/month after taxes to be able to afford just your savings (which is far more important, after all) and your iPhone bill. And that's assuming you have no other expenses at all, being a freeloading kid and everything. Although if you start pulling down that much, your parents or guardians will probably start charging you rent. Heck, I would.

Just get an iPod touch instead.

Why does my iPhone get a bad connection in Huntington Beach, CA?

I don't know. Hippies?

My iPhone 3G was stolen out of my hand. I chased him down to the beach and he threw it into the water. It washed up on shore about five minutes later and it was completely destroyed. What do I do?

Use it as a bludgeon. If you already have a decent bludgeon, send it to Robbie. He brought me back to life after I'd been in the ocean of Hawaii, with the waves and the mermaid sweat and everything. Or contact one of the many iPhone repair services. They do good work.