It seemed like a layup idea for the wife’s Christmas present, or a smart one rather, as in smart phone. Siri might say of it, “Well done, master.” OK, she hasn’t actually called me master yet, but maybe someday. And she’s not even actually my phone, because I only have the Siri-less iPhone 4, not the 4s like I planned to buy for Kathy for her birthday/Christmas present. When you’re born on the 18th of December, sometimes the presents tend to run together, like they did this year.
So I said, “How about I get you the new iPhone for Christmas?”
“Why would I want that? I love my Blackberry. I don’t want to spend the money.”
I reminded her of our conversation two years ago.
“How about I get you a new smart phone for Christmas?
“Why would I want that? I love my phone. I don’t want to spend the money.”
But back to the present, “You trusted me before and you need to again. The iPhone is the perfect rehab for the Crackberry. There is no comparison.”
So off we went to Verizon. When we got there, the guy stood up and said, “Do you want your 4s in black or in white?” I thought of the little girl ordering coffee in the movie
“Airplane,” as I turned to Kathy and asked, “How did he know that?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, white or black,” I asked her.
“Oh black,” she said, remembering the movie herself.
“Sorry, we’re out of black,” he told us.
“You want white?” I asked Kathy. But before she could answer, the guy says, “Sorry, we’re out of white too.”
He was confusing me, but at least he was nice enough to call the Apple Store in the Promenade and let us know they had phones there, in both colors. So off we went.
It was my first time in the hi-tech store, which opened this summer. There was a guy in a red shirt at the door with a legal pad. Kathy and I walked by him and I found another red shirt guy who asked me if I’d put my name in at the door. I hadn’t, and he looked a bit suspicious, but took me over to another red shirt guy who was assigned to us. And in case you’re wondering, there are also red shirt girls, just not as many.
The Apple store is very open and clean. Long white tables covered with the silver tablets that have become the symbol of a generation, run the length of the store.
We told our red shirt guy what we were looking for and he plugged our info into a nearby Mac and said, “Ah, here we are. Well, it looks like Jay’s phone is the only one eligible for an upgrade.” He thought a moment, which in the I world isn’t long, and said, “We can update Jay’s phone and then reverse it out and apply it back to Kathy’s number in a new 4s.”
“I don’t care as long as she gets her phone and mine is unscathed,” I told him, remembering the mess I encountered when trying to get into the iClouds. “I lost all my contacts,” I told him.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” he said.
“No, and Hal shouldn’t have tried to take over the spaceship either, but…”
Our red shirt guy said not to worry.
“I love my Blackberry,” Kathy whispered to me.
But it all actually worked out, and in less than an hour, we were walking out the door into the cold night with our Apple packages. Right, I said packages. While we waited on some technicalities, I wandered over to the Apple TV area, my red shirt guy not far behind.
After his five-minute presentation, I was placing the small white box in the white sack and saying goodbye to our red shirt guy as Kathy made calls on her new black phone, which, I might add, she loved after only a day. As I watched her walk down the Promenade on the way back to the car, I could have sworn I saw Siri winking at me.