Loyal For Life

On St. Patrick's Day we had been out to dinner with some friends.  They have recently lost their dog of nearly two decades, the senior statesman and welcome wagon of the neighborhood.  It's hit the whole family hard, and since I think everyone should have at least one dog,  Smiley Dog Rescue seemed the place to start.  On my new Macbook Air of course.  And if you have a friend who isn't familiar with Pinterest of course you have to show them your boards...

The internet was soooooo slow, and as we were waiting for a page, any page to load, I reached for my Irish coffee.  And poured it across the keyboard of my adored two week old Macbook Air.

The whiskey and whipped cream went into the keyboard and drained out the trackpad.  Sticky streaks marked the screen as I tried to wipe off some of the mess.  I tipped it up and more coffee and stickiness dripped out the bottom.

"Rice!" Leeann exclaimed.  "My iPhone got soaked, I put it in rice, and it's been fine." So into a big bag of rice went my Macbook Air, tipped on its side so it could drain.

I thought it would be a good idea to wiggle the hinge to try to get more liquid out before it dried and got totally gummed up.  Bad idea.  When I took it out of the rice the next morning there were rice grains stuck in the hinge, and I could hear more rice rattling around inside the computer.  Oops.

In tears we made an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar.  I had a sleepless night chastising myself.  I don't make a lot of mistakes, but this one was a doozy, and being a Lutheran...well, let's just say forgiving yourself is not part of the Protestant ethic as I learned it.

We thought about not telling them what had happened...for about one second.   It's the Lutheran thing, remember?  I imagine I felt a bit like a naughty Catholic at confession waiting to hear what could be done...I felt trepidation, guilt, remorse...

The young man who listened to our tale of woe said "At least it was Irish coffee.  On St. Patrick's Day.  You get points for that" and went off to see what could be done.  We sat in silence, surrounded by the happy din of the Apple store, and watched glumly as excited customers clutching their new toys grinned and threaded their way through the crowd and out the door.

When the young man came back, he said "I have some bad news.  Is there anything on this computer you can't replace?  Anything you haven't backed up?"  Nope, thanks to Wally's quick mind and his external keyboard (the one on the Airbook was frozen) we'd just backed everything up.

"Good!" he said.  "Here's a new Macbook Air.  You'll have to reload all your stuff, but since you backed it up, it won't be a problem, and you owe us zero dollars and zero cents."

We left the store grinning, me clutching my new computer to my chest.  I am writing this on my new toy, no coffee or tea in sight.

Only at Apple. Loyal for life.