Thursday, February 07, 2008

Of Mice and Apples...

Alrighty folks... sorry the blogging has been a bit lacking lately, but I can explain! Actually, I don't have any great reasons, but I do have a few new things in the works that I'm excited to share.
Sidenote: My buddy Chris (hey man, thanks for reading... if you're still reading... if not, then I just wasted 97 characters of Blogger server space for nothing...;-) recently told me that I need to mix in more light-hearted thoughts on here to keep my readers interested and not depressed. So, I'm gonna try! [But don't forget that over 18,000 children die everyday from preventable hunger and malnutrition. ::heavy pause:: I'm trying not to forget.] OK!
So, I haven't forgotten about my blogging prospectus that I posted back in December... life just keeps moving on and I've only knocked off a couple of the posts that I intended. But I'm still planning to get through those... so bear with me. (I'll try to tackle those population ideas in my next post).

But tonight, I'd like to tell you my quirky little story about Mice and Apple(s)...

To provide a little context, after six years of planning, scheming, and outright waiting, I am about to have a fully functional digital recording studio in our home [which has arbitrarily been dubbed Studio L... {cue the funky horn section with a breakbeat:}]. But I'll save those details for another time. The point is that I've been piece-mealing together various components for this studio, some of which include computer hardware.

If you haven't figured it out by now, Tara and I are fully Macintosh-kool-aid-drinking-people. In fact, I think I was probably a Mac fanboy before I even owned a single Apple product (as I cut my teeth on Macs in the studios back at Wheaton). Aaaaanyway, I decided to order the new Mac keyboard (wired) and the Kensington PocketMouse to enable me to convert my MacBook Pro into a desktop setup at home. So, the FedEx truck rolls up this afternoon, professionally prank-knocks my front door, and when I open it up and look down, my boyish grin turns upside down.
"Hmm. That's an awfully small box. Either Apple's reeeeally good and figured out a way to dehydrate the keyboard so that I just have to add water to get it back to fullsize, or there's no keyboard in there."
There was no keyboard in there. I got the Kensington... and I got a Wireless Mighty Mouse. Not A mouse... MICE... meeses, if you will. I don't want TWO (even though that Mighty Mouse looks kinda cool)... I wanna mouse and a keyboard. So I call Apple to see if I can just take it by the Apple Store nearby to swap it out. No, it was ordered online so it has to be resolved with the online store. ::humph::

And here's where it gets good, ladies and gents:

The fella says, "Sir, I'm committed resolving this issue for you." cool, me too

"Because this was our fault, what I'm going to do is get the keyboard in the mail to you..." grand

"... we'll send it expedited for no charge..." fine

"... you can have the ($70!!!!) wireless mighty mouse for free..." SERIOUSLY???

"... and we're going to credit your debit card $25 to compensate you for the hassle." WHA????

Wow. So there you have it folks. That's how to keep your loyal customers happy and coming back for more. So, I'd suggest that you order something from Apple.com... say, a printer cable... and maybe, JUST MAYBE, they'll accidentally include the wrong item!

One can hope... ;-)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where's the kool aid!?!?! I wanna drink!!!
Oooorrr, maybe they're just kissing up to everyone because they might be about to drop the price of the MacBook Air. =)

Unknown said...

WOW. That is impressive. Way above and beyond the cal. I may have to tell this to others. You know, so I can continue my mission of converting Windoze geeks to apple fan boyz. Yes, i did it, fanboys with a Z.

maventheavenger aka jamie said...

Perhaps they can afford to give away product because their computers cost a million dollars to begin with? (wink)

Kate said...

Hmmmm... the story of stuff comes to mind... is free actually "free?" ;-) Oh wait.. happy blog, happy blog.

AdamBam said...

Ahaha! Touché, Katie... touché. Well, hopefully this mouse that they dumped on me will not become obsolete as quickly as most computer products ;-) And I think it's made out of edible plastics! Let's see --- mmmmm...

:-]

Kate said...

haha - I couldn't help myself :-D

I will admit I love "free" as much as the next guy..

p.s. I enjoy your blog.. I have enough other light hearted miscellaneous things to think of during they day... or maybe it's just that I am challenged a lot lately by the same things and like reading someone else's thoughts....

either way.. good blogging!