The Beast Is Still In The Box

As the nation’s jobless rate hovers at around 10%, a frightening statistic, I think there may be some hope on the horizon that employment prospects will improve, at least for the unemployed twenty-somethings, who are having a particularly difficult time finding interesting and gainful employment these days.

Baby-boomers, particularly those who initially were happy to see their children move out of the house, now find themselves desperately in need of “translators,” “enablers,” and “corner ring managers”—young people who can help us find our way in the modern world.

Nowhere is this need more apparent than in an Apple Store.

A colleague convinced me to buy an IPod Touch. The device has a nice array of features that my cellphone-for-dummies does not, most importantly, internet and email access wherever there is wireless connectivity.

What is most attractive is the one-time payment; purchasing an IPhone, for example, would entail a subscription with a new service, monthly charges, and a fat penalty plus twenty short, sharp lashes across my back applied by some guy in a cape from my existing service for voiding my current contract.

I had no doubt whatsoever that this acquisition was a good idea, or so I thought until I walked into this very strange establishment.

The encounter started off on a high note: within ten seconds, a young saleswoman, as tall as I, greeted me with a bright smile and immediately asked how she could help. I said I was in search of an IPod Touch.

“Excellent,” she replied, as she pulled her red hair back from in front of her eyes and tucked the strands behind her ear. “Do you have any questions?”

I responded that my colleague had given me a quick demo of the power of the machine and that I was convinced that this was exactly what I wanted.

Although in retrospect I cannot recall with certainty what she said next, I believe an “Awesome” fell from her lips, or perhaps that was merely what I had expected to hear from a woman young enough to be my daughter, and who’s hair had just fallen in front of her eyes for a second time in the space of the ninety seconds that I had been standing there.

Her next query—“You are aware, are you not, that you can only get access to the internet if you are in a wireless area?”—I initially found a bit strange, but then realized that she was probably obliged, by virtue of her training and the insistence of her handlers, to push the IPhone or some other costly device that she was led to believe (not incorrectly) that middle-aged people are incapable of mastering.

I was aware of the Touch’s access limitation, but the mere posing of the question was enough to put the slightest doubt in my mind about the merit of this purchase, and made me painfully aware that I had entered into a foreign country without passport or translator.

In my less confident state, I muttered, “Are there instructions in the box?”—as though I would be able to follow them even if there were!

She declared, with what I registered to be just the slightest bit of derision, “Here at Apple, we are very green.”

Had my translator been by my side, he would have explained, “Mr. Naimoli, she is saying you are in deep do-do.”

Having realized that her left lead had struck a glancing blow, she followed with a right hook, “It’s all very INTUITIVE. When I bought my IPhone, I just stayed up all night until I figured it out.”

Translation: “Mr. Naimoli, do you remember how you hated those video games your kids used to play because you could never figure out exactly what was the objective? Welcome back, Kotter! You are in for a world of hurt, more than you ever imagined.”

As I began to sway, I first felt my knees buckle, and then I desperately tried to regain my balance with one last squeaky, nerdy question:“Will I need a stylus?”

She backed me into the corner with a left-right combination, and with her left eyebrow ever so slightly raised in the form of a soft arc, which was only partially visible through that reckless hair of hers that had fallen in front of her face, again, she sighed: “No, your finger will do fine. Only people who have trouble reading the small keys need those things.”

Kaboom! Thud!

“Stay right here and don’t move,” she barked with authority, like a referee standing over a boxer who had just hit the deck and was being counted out, “while I go in the back room to look for your Touch.”

As I stood there perspiring and taking short, deep, frequent breaths, another salesman came to my aid.

“You look a little lost, sir.” “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

I warbled, “No, thanks,” as I suppressed a very intense urge to ask for a cool damp cloth and some smelling salts.

Within five minutes she reappeared with my IPod in one hand and a mobile checkout machine in the other, like the ones they use at airport rental car agencies when you return your car. I was in such a fragile state that had she asked for my keys I would have probably turned them over to her as well!

“One IPod Touch and 2 screensavers. There you go,” she snapped, sounding eerily like the former governor of Alaska. She then uttered a string of instructions about downloading ITunes, and something about an App Store, and I believe I heard the word “interface” thrown into that Scrabble-like jumble of words that were spilling from her mouth, none of which I was absorbing in my highly compromised state.

I thanked her, but midway through my turn for the door, I remembered the other reason I had come to the store. I inquired: “Do you have any mousepads?"

“Mousepads?” she hissed, incredulously. “I haven’t seen one of those in years!” she laughed.

Translation: “Mr. Naimoli, you’ve been exposed. Run from this place as fast as those wobbly legs can carry you before she rips that IPod out of your trembling hands. And never come back!”

As I was taken up in the rush of mall shoppers who were entering and exiting this popular location, I thought I heard a trailing shout-out: “Mr. Naimoli, call me on my IPhone if you have any trouble over at Radio Shack.”