Shufflin' and Stumblin'




Last night, I get home and scoop up the brown DHL soft pack waiting for me. I rip it open as I pet the cats and drop my gym gear, and my joy evaporates.

Apple didn't send me a replacement Shuffle. Instead, I got the widget you see above. It's the Shuffle dock, which looks adorable, as if it came from the clonemasters of Kamino. Like most things Apple, it's a blend of form and function, making tech a small piece of furniture, blurring that space between machine and decoration. And I got it for free. On paper, it's great.

Except I still have a dead Shuffle, and a dead Shuffle in a cute dock is still a dead Shuffle. Now, it looks like a snow-colored middle finger, flipping me off from beyond the gadget grave.

"I think they are taunting me," I mutter to my wife, as I wait on hold minutes after I open the soft pack. I hear Counting Crows as I wait on hold. I hear a pre-Muslim Cat Stevens. I hear that soft melodic hum of pseudo alt/coffeehouse, all earnest and symbolizing the corporate core wrapped in the veneer of mushy guitar-folk-rock. I pray to the Elder Gods that the Eagles don't make an appearance.

The first human I reach tells me I need to talk to someone else, this time in repair. I get a phone number with about 17 minutes before the Apple Support lines shut down for the night, and the tech support listen to 8 hours of NIN or GWAR to get "American Girl" out of their heads.

I hang up, I re-dial, my wife snarks about my devotion to Apple, I waitwaitwait, eyeing the minutes before the close of business. An automated voice intones I have a 15 minute or less wait time.

It's 12 minutes before close.

I sit on the floor. My wife exercises in the other room, and I pull out a graphic novel to distract myself from the coming disconnect. It's past 6 now, when the call center closes, and I'm still on hold. The last time this happened, when I was on past closing, I got the happy tones that I was about to transfered to a human (in Cupertino or Calcutta, I can't fathom), and then the gate slammed down. Disconnected. Dial tone. Game over, chump.

So, I wait, leaving through a trade paperback of "Star Wars: Empire." Beeping ensues, I'm about to transfered. I await the inevitable hang-up and head off frustration with petting a nearby cat.

"Hello, this is Brett, can I have your repair number?"

"Holy fuck, you're real," I stop myself from saying. I talk fast, thinking I'm going to lose him. I explain the whole sordid history of the dead Shuffle, and he apologizes for the mix-up. He tells me I'm getting a replacement Shuffle, tells me to keep the Dock, and to mail back the dead Shuffle to Apple when I get the new one. Details are arranged, and I get an email a few minutes later saying, yep, a new Shuffle's a-coming. My wife says if Apple botches it this time, I should push for a Nano, or stock options, or a hug from Steve Jobs. I should get my new distraction device in seven business days.

I thank Brett. I hang up and do a little victory dance. Then my wife tells me to make dinner.

Will our hero get his Shuffle? Will he burn the meat in the pan? Will our hero be able to endure his job without music for much longer?

Find out next time, in "As the Shuffle Loads."