My beloved 17inch MacBookPro is affectionately called Susie Q. She’s been a little under the weather lately, and we have suffered together over the past week because of it. Her hard drive is on the fritz, and while I was hoping it was just a software glitch, it wasn’t. So I was down for a week trying to restore and then rebuild the software on the hard drive. Now I’ll be down another week waiting to have her new hard drive installed.

As much as I love Mac’s, their repair service SUCKS. I went to the closest Apples store because no one else is allowed to work on them, nor does any company sell the parts.

When I walk in, there’s iPads, iPods, and computers everywhere. It was a Friday around 1:00 p.m. and the place was PACKED with people. There had to have been 20 or more blue shirted ‘genius’es. This is Apple’s term for their employees. They really want you to think they’re geniuses but in reality they’re sales people, in blue shirts. I walked up to what they call the Genius Bar and waited for my appointment and name to come up.

A stringy haired genius called my name and I pulled Susie Q out of the bag and he goes to tapping around on her. Already, I was agitated at his lack of respect for my Diva Machine, but bit my tongue. He half-assed listens to my story and starts to run some ‘diagnostic tests’. As I waited, I peeked around the screen to see what he was doing…and he was running the Disk Utility.

It comes standard on the machine.

I’ve run it already about 20 times.

It said the drive was okay.

So did his run.

He tells me he thinks the hard drive needs to be replaced. When I laughed out loud he pinched his face. With a broad grin on my face I said, “That’s what I said when I came in”. He furrowed his fuzzy brow and went to get his paperwork.

As he was avoiding me, the SYT (sweet young thing) and her friend that had been waiting beside me were talking to their genius. She had a hard drive problem too. The genius helping her extolled his sorrow about her broken machine (she fell, took it with her, crashed the drive and broke the case) and worried over her health and whether she was physically okay. I’m listening because, well, I’m nosy, and I was bored waiting for my genius to return from the solid steel door.

SYT and Genius #2 begin talking about her drive and that he could get it changed out today if she wanted to wait a few hours but she would need to come back in a few weeks to drop the machine off again to have the case replaced.

Deep inside my core I was so excited! I thought, TODAY?! Oh boy!! Me and Susie Q can go home and live happily ever after! Woo Hoo!!! Yip yip hooray!

I was happy.

I was elated.

I couldn’t wait for wimpy genius to return.

I started to do a happy dance but refrained.

Wimpy Stringy Genius returned with my paperwork and started telling me that he’d get the paperwork in today but they’d probably send it off tomorrow and [white noise] [buzzing sounds] [blood rushing] [white noise] [buzzing sounds] [blood rushing].

Huh?

What did you say? Did you say SEND. IT. OFF. ???? Um, WHAT?

Yes, he says, we’ll need to send it off to get the drive fixed.

At this point, I’m sure he noticed a drastic turn in my demeanor and it was going to get ugly. I had to ask him why SYT could get hers today, but I would need to wait a week. He looked me straight in the eyes and said “She’s not going to get hers today.” Since she was standing right there, I loudly asked her “Hey, didn’t he just tell you that you could get your hard drive today if you wanted to wait two hours?”

When she said yes, the two geniuses got their heads together and decided that my machine was much different than hers so would need further, er, help. Whatever.

I asked if he could just sell me the hard drive and I’d do it myself. No, they don’t sell hard drives.

I finally gave in to the urge to use my sarcasm font and asked him why they had a genius bar if there weren’t any on staff. Why would it take so long to fix an old lady’s computer, but yet if I was young perhaps I could get mine today too. Perhaps they needed a few less sales people and a lot more technicians. He then let me know that there was a stack of computers back there just as important as mine that needed work too and he couldn’t put me in front of the line.

A stack?

That needs service?

Should I turn around and tell all these potential customers??

HEY! THERE’S A STACK OF COMPUTERS BACK THERE THAT NEEDS WORK! A STACK!! YOU CAN’T REPAIR IT YOURSELF OR YOU’LL VOID YOUR WARRANTY. YOU CAN’T BUY THE HARDWARE IF YOU WANTED TO. YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT A WEEK IF YOU’RE OVER FORTY. APPLE HATES OLD PEOPLE!

Okay, fine. I didn’t say ALL that. But I wanted to. I did emphasize I thought it was quite ODD that SYT could get her hard drive today, but yet Mrs. Overforty had to wait.

I wasn’t happy. Susie Q wasn’t happy either. I could tell. She thinks she’s special and he was swinging her like she was a paperback.

I am positive that when he took her in the back he spit on her, stuck a scarlet B on her shiny apple, and added a few extra days to my repair turn-around time.

You’d think that these so-called Geniuses would cut a gal some slack. You’d think they, of all people, would understand the panic, the sadness, the fear of being without my baby for a whole week! I’m going through withdrawals Wimpy!! Give me some sympathy.