Turns out the malfunctions were caused from the couple of seven times I spilled my coffee all over my phone, which voided the warranty.
However--APPLE CARE. I got a new 4s for only $50 instead of the $150 it would have cost to just do a straight replacement.
However, the phone they gave me had a seizure and died on the way back to work, so I had to take care of a very headache inducing customer first (this is a crochety old b@stard who is out to be the biggest jerk he can be to the world because apparently he's earned the "right") and then head back to Apple. Got a working phone that actually works. Hooray!
The one kicker in all this is that due to the liquid damage, the charger/info port was shot and they couldn't transfer my old phone to my new phone. So I had an essentially useless phone (in that I had none of my phone numbers or apps) all day and then I get home to realize that I hadn't done back up of my phone since February.
It's finishing now, I just have to go through and update all the apps and then try and remember whose phone numbers I've acquired since Feb and get them again...