I know, I neglected the blog! I do have a good excuse though– I had some posts written in my phone, which suddenly started trying to kill me last week. Once an integral part of my work system breaks down like that, it makes the other things suffer. Gah!
Perhaps you saw a reference on Facebook or Twitter– last week I entered into yet another of the bureaucratic circles of Hell when my iPhone started sending a series of low-level shocks into my ears and (i'm pretty sure) straight into my brain. Wouldn't you think this would be something the Apple Store would find interesting? You'd think that they'd find the actual shocking of their customers to be a top priority. Also, once it started doing this I was kind of afraid to touch the phone.
First, though, I had to post about it on Facebook, which lead several people to say things like "this would only happen to you.". I have to agree, it does seem like a lot of weird things happen around me, or it could also be that a lot of weird or unusual things happen to people every day, but because I write about them, it seems like they happen to me more.
Anyhow, so my iPhone is shocking me, I can't talk on it, I need to do something asap, but as you know you first have to make an appointment with the Genius Bar gatekeepers, and they have to agree with you that something is wrong in order to greenlight the apple care, blah blah blah. The only way I can get a same day appointment is to drive to a mall in Connecticut, so I do that. More about malls and how I am scared of food courts later.
So, I get to the genius bar and it turns out that, in fact, being shocked by your phone is NOT a unique experience, to the point where AppleCare has a whole category called "Shock/ Short" to make the processing that much easier.
This is (to me, at least) the really weird part. They didn't actually have a replacement phone in stock, which meant they had to order it, which meant that I left there with a phone that could still shock me. I guess I thought they were going to offer me a replacement, or maybe that they were going to confiscate the phone, but all I got was a semi-emphatic "please try not to use this phone until the new one comes in, and especially just don't use the headphones," like this was something I was going to continue though they were shocking me in the head. Who does that? I didn't even want to leave the store with the phone, ok?
After they ordered my new phone and issued the warning about the old one, I was starving, which of course poses a real problem for me since mall food courts send me into a tailspin of food-related anxiety, as I walk around them and get more and more upset and end up having frozen yogurt for dinner because everything else looks like it's been sitting out, or the people who work there look dirty, or really the whole food court is florescent, which creeps me out when it comes to eating because it makes all the food look so bright and weird. To make things a little more surreal, I can't even distract myself by taking on the phone, since there is the real possibility that it could shock me in the head. So really, danger all around, which I guess is appropriate since that is what it's like to be inside the mind of an anxious person– you really just need your mind to turn in a certain direction, and then regular things like a food court will start to scare you, and then you have to just stop doing whatever you're doing, or get out of there, or eat frozen yogurt for dinner.
Finally got the new phone, spent several days trying to set it up and get it back to it's former state (during which time I of course realized just how much I use that phone to free me from having to be chained to the computer all day). I also realized I don't know anyone's number anymore– can that be good? I will try not to obsess about this.
Also, try as I might, I cannot stop watching this KIA commercial. I liked this song in the 90's, and now I like it even more. Dancing hamsters! Well done, Agency of Record for KIA!
