So the phone was not sent with a number for some reason. Is that the cause of the problem? Probably. Maybe. After talking to Apple, I had a lovely merry-go-round with half a dozen Verizon customer service reps. Twice. After an inordinate amount of waiting time I was told the rep would call me back in about half an hour (this was at 4:30pm). It sounds like there is some paperwork that was not included in the box. Nobody called back.
Unsurprisingly everyone has been less than worthless, so I'll be going to the Verizon store tomorrow. If they can't figure it out it goes back to apple and I'm getting something else. This is so stupid and my time is too valuable to be waisted trying to give Verizon my money.