USM parking’s latest casualties are a $1000 iPhone X and a devastated junior biochemistry major.

“I was running a little late to class, so I decided to take my car,” Samer Beauti, a long-time fan of the Apple company, said.

The decision would haunt him.

Beauti — who had just recently obtained the newest iPhone — had trouble finding parking anywhere and eventually ended up in the parking lot outside the honors house, a far walk from his physics class.

He hurried out of his car and was near the trunk when he heard something hit the ground.

“I turned around, and my phone [was] lying face-flat,” Beauti said. “That’s when my heart dropped.”

Despite owning many different iPhones in the past, Beauti was a stranger to the experience. He had ordered a case, but he didn’t think he needed it.

“I’ve had all my other phones out of [their] cases for a long period of time before,” Beauti said. “I’ve never cracked a phone. I’ve never cracked a screen. I never thought I’d drop it because I’ve never dropped a phone before.”

The incident took place on Monday afternoon, only three days after Beauti first received the phone. To add insult to injury, Beauti received his case in the mail Tuesday.

After his phone broke, Beauti sat through his physics class and then went to the library to take a picture with his newly-shattered phone before doing what any millennial in his situation might.

“I decided I’d tell people on Twitter,” Beauti said. “I took a picture with my Macbook of myself holding my iPhone and tweeted it.”

Beauti tweeted his picture with the caption “if anyone is having a bad day, I just shattered my iPhone X if it makes u feel any better.”

The response was nearly instantaneous.

Beauti said that someone from Buzzfeed replied to his tweet, but he didn’t see it. On Tuesday, his friend messaged him a screenshot of his tweet in a new Buzzfeed article titled “People Are Spending $1,000 on a New iPhone X And Then Immediately Shattering It.”

“I started getting all these Facebook notifications,” Beauti said.

He didn’t realize at first that his picture had been used as the cover photo for the link.

“I thought I was just in the article, but they actually put me on the front page,” he said. “So whenever people shared the link, my sad face would be right there.”

Beauti’s photo ended up on Buzzfeed’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He quickly learned the differences among various platforms.

“Facebook has a lot of angry parents,” he said. “They lectured me and asked me why I buy Apple products anyway. Twitter was more like teenagers my age giving me [their] condolences and Instagram was a mixture of both.”

Beauti was also interviewed in a radio show in Detroit, Michigan, during which he related his experience.

He said that the fame has made his unfortunate incident easier to bear, and that despite what happened, he still recommends Apple products.

“I’ve learned glass breaks,” Beauti said. “If you drop any other phone on concrete, the same thing will happen. I still think Apple is superior.”

Beauti also said that the steep price of the phone was worth it.

“People [ask] how can you spend a thousand dollars on your phone.” Beauti said. “But for someone who really values and appreciates Apple, it’s worth it. I don’t eat out at all; I eat in the Fresh. Some people like new cars, clothes, you know. Everyone enjoys something different.”

Beauti has learned some valuable lessons as a result of his experience.

“Just because it’s never happened doesn’t mean it can’t happen,” he said. “Always have a case on your phone, no matter what.”

Because Beauti knows how easily he could have avoided it all, he concedes to his more negative commentators —and there are a lot of them—and many have even made him laugh.

“My iPhone X is now my iPhone Ex,” Beauti said. “Someone commented that and it made me chuckle.”