The Goodwill of Store Clerks & Loving Thy Neighbour

Last updated on April 1st, 2021 at 01:27 am

So as we all know from the last couple days’ of posts, the 2010 20K didn’t end up as well as I’d originally anticipated. The drive wasn’t there to reach the original goal, and my life became highly involved in a number of other pursuits. I’m sorry if I let anyone down with this—but in retrospect, it wasn’t the right fit. If you did end up contributing and want me to make a donation in-kind to a charity of your choice, or have some other crazy idea that you’d like me to follow up on, I’m all ears 😊 I believe that some of the principles that help govern a healthy lifestyle include collaboration, communication and flexibility, so let me express some of those, and hopefully, we can figure out what next steps to take 😊

I was doing some thinking lately about the past year, and how on one hand, while I was striving to find ways to make some extra cash, I was equally fortunate that I didn’t need to shell out some ridiculous sums at times! Chalk it up to divine intervention, maybe to just—as some of my coworkers like to so subtly put it—me having “a horseshoe up my ass”, I’ve been fortunate.

One such story happened in mid-late November.

It was the night of a band practice for the OPS Battle of the Bands (we’re The Calamities, by the way—pictures and video coming soon). We were off to a rocky start musically, and we wanted to record ourselves to get a better idea of what things were sounding like. So I whipped out my ever-handy iPod Touch (4th gen) so we could get something clean to work with, placing it square in the middle of a nearby amp. This was not a good idea. With the combination of the bassy reverberations of the amp and a wayward foot hitting its side, I found myself looking over, moments later, to an iPod facedown on the ground.

The drop couldn’t have been more than a foot, but it was enough to send a crack glaring diagonally across the face of my (rather pricy) source of fun. It was very, very hard to get through the rest of practice without losing my ****, but I eventually made it and ventured home, damaged goods in tow. Sarah was about as unimpressed as I was.

When I got in, I started reviewing the warranty documentation, only to find that inflicted damage isn’t covered. This was definitely not cool, since I’d bought AppleCare to extend my warranty for another two years just in case. So there went my money down the drain in SO many ways, and me Googling for a solution when there was none to be found 😔

So I decided to go into the Apple Store to see what my options were. I found out that I could reserve an appointment online—which I did, leaving a lengthy explanation of how the damage happened; how I didn’t want to pay half the cost of the iPod Touch for a repair fee since it was only a couple of months old and since Apple doesn’t currently supply any cases for their newest iPod Touch, and that I was generally upset.

Booked. And then re-booked. And then re-booked once again. (What can I say—it was a really busy day!)

I went to the Genius Bar to see what we could do. I was pretty nervous, because knowing that AppleCare didn’t cover this, we were looking at a repair charge of $219 + tax on top of what I’d already paid for the device and the extended warranty. The guy who helped me—the first thing he noticed was the case I had for my iPod Touch (I believe it was a Miss Belle case I’d gotten from Fan Expo 2010—thanks to this site for helping me figure it out!) and how cute it was. Little did I know that this would open the door for further awesomeness—we started talking about what had happened, how high the drop had been, how I was trying to record my band so we could figure out where we were going wrong—and yeah. When I was done, he gave me a look and let me know that this isn’t usually done, but he was going to give me a one-time replacement, free of charge.

WHAT.

Maaaaan, it was like Christmas had come early. (I think I overused this line in 2010, for the record.) The first thing I did after leaving the store (after profusely thanking the guy and promising to spread the word that the Apple Store Toronto Eaton Centre is freaking awesome with amazing customer service) was hit up The Source and get myself a sturdy leather case to make sure that this crap never happened again.

So I guess the moral here is that saving money is equal parts earning the money, but also not spending your money idiotically. And spending that money would have been STUPID. I’m really glad I didn’t have to.

So keep your devices close and your common sense closer, and while I use my Springpad to sort out all these notes I have strewn across various areas, I hope that you guys aren’t going crazy with the holiday season! (I haven’t even started shopping yet, but I can already see the year being pretty low-key. Though I know some friends are being totally slacktastic with their wish lists. You know who you are. Yes, I can call you out in my blog!)

Peace out, homefries,