Pull the Plug
Like any Catholic school survivor, I have grim memories of sour-faced nuns relentlessly drilling the Decalogue into my young, defenseless brain.
Now, Rule No. 3 on God’s holy hit parade clearly states, “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain.” Unfortunately, a series of unexpected circumstances this morning had me violating it all over town.
Like so many of my freakouts, this latest debacle involved technology, specifically my new iPhone, which stubbornly and suddenly refused to charge this morning.
I stared at the thing, waiting to hear the little beep and see the tiny green bar appear in the top left corner of my phone, but nothing happened.
Panic set in quickly as I watched the power drain from this device that has pretty much commandeered my life.
I do so much with this damn thing: text messages, voice mails, scheduling my many doctors’ appointments and, of course, all the vital time I spend on social media.
I quickly realized that I would have to scrub today’s to-do list and hustle down to the Apple Store on Flatbush Avenue and wait until Judgment Day or for someone to come help me, whichever came first.
My plan was to hit the gym before the place opened and then zip downtown. But it slowly dawned on me that I should make an appointment with the Genius Bar so I could save some time.
But that plan turned into a noob nightmare, with me struggling to communicate with Apple’s AI assistant until I finally demanded to speak to a human.
I actually got an appointment for 5:20 p.m. today, for about three seconds.
But then Mr. Nutbag decided to ask the operator to check the hours at some of the other Apple stores in New York to see if I could get an earlier appointment.
However, they were all booked for days in advance.
“Okay, never mind,” I told the operator. “I’ll take the 5:20 p.m. appointment.”
“Sorry, it just got filled.”
Now I was bordering on straitjacket territory. I couldn’t possibly go for days without a phone, and I’ve got all types of appointments lined up for the week.
The only other option, the operator told me, was to go to the Apple Store as a walk-in and pray that someone called my name before the polar ice caps melted.
I dimly recall, at some point, staggering up 86th Street muttering “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ...” over and over, and on the Lord’s Day no less. My old Catholic school nuns must’ve been doing somersaults in their graves.
C’mon, I told myself, you’re a boomer. You lived most of your life without this thing, and you managed to survive.
Leading the Charge
And that’s what amazes me about technology, how something can go from novelty to necessity in the blink of an iPhone.
One minute, I’m asking, “Hey, what’s this internet thing?” and the next minute we’re all wired into the World Wide Web.
It is amazing how slowly things go when you’re losing your mind. The Verizon store did not open until 11 a.m., and the dude behind the door took his sweet freaking time undoing the locks.
I joined a small group of customers who streamed into the store and hunted down the nearest assistant, a nice young man who told me there was some kind of obstruction in the USB port but that he couldn’t do anything about it.
And what do you know? Just a few doors down, there was a tiny hole-in-the-wall store that did phone repairs.
Of course, I stood behind a little old lady who took absolutely forever to settle her business and get the hell out of my way. (I did hold the door open for her when she finally did leave, so I'm not completely evil.)
A woman in a plexiglass box told me she could fix my phone for 25 bucks. Apple wouldn’t have charged me, but since I couldn’t get near a Genius Bar, it sounded like a good deal.
A short time later, I was walking home with a song in my heart and a functioning phone in my pocket.
I surely do regret pummeling the Third Commandment so brutally, but I also apologize and thank the Good Lord for getting me out of this spot.
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