Carrie Link

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE

Here's a Mary story for you, and I haven't even begun the pilgrimage yet.

Last Friday I said to Mary, "Okay, make a computer fall from the sky." We need a "new" laptop so Rojo can take one to school, and buying even a used one would be really hard to do right now.

My Mac was acting up, it had been doing this weird thing on and off for weeks, where it would kick me off the Internet and I'd have to go through this elaborate process to reconnect, and every now and then it would just totally freeze. Unacceptable. So, I packed it up with my Apple Care paperwork and went to befriend my nearest Mac tech, shortly after my Mary request.

Enter Eric.

Eric diagnosed the problem and asked me if I'd been faithfully backing up since I bought the computer a year ago. I assured him that yes, I'd learned that lesson the hard way, and indeed I'd spent a few minutes each and every week backing up to an external hard drive. He told me to go back home and get that hard drive, because he was going to wipe my computer clean and then reinstall everything except the corrupted part(s).

"Long as I'm going home and coming back, do you guys take old Macs to be recycled? I have a junker in my garage that I don't know what to do with," I asked Eric.

Eric shook his curly ponytailed head yes.

So, I came back later with the hard drive and the "junker," a computer that we couldn't get to even turn on any more, and had been passed down to Rojo and then brutalized before finally "dying."

Eric and I spent the next three hours together on my Mac, before I finally suggested I go home and he could call me when it was done, since let's face it, whatever (little) information I was providing could easily be phoned in.

I had barely gotten in the door and Eric called. "Why do you want to recycle this Mac? It works great!" I told him we couldn't even get it to turn on. "Well, its working now. You can come back and get it!"

Before I could even get my purse and get in the car, Eric called back. "Hey. There's a crack in the case. I'm going to send it in for replacement. Come in on Thursday and pick it up, it should be back then, but I'll call you first."

So. Yesterday was Thursday and Eric called. "Basically you have a whole new computer. They replaced everything. You were still covered by your old Apple Care warranty. You can come get it whenever you're ready."

Thank you, Apple.

Thank you, Eric.

Thank you, Mary.