The Night the Lights went out in the **!#*! Apple Store

It was a dark and stormy night… We entered the Apple store and it was eerily quiet. Too quiet for my liking.

I was carrying a large computer and my daughter had her MacBook. We were seated and greeted immediately, offered coffee, neck rubs and free WiFi. We declined all but the WiFi as we were only there for our sick Apple babies. Our Genius knew exactly the problem without even having to describe it. He was clearly telepathic.

Then the lights powered down and several alarms sounded. We waited for a minute and then the staff reassured us our babies would be safe with them as the 6 customers were safely escorted out of the store.

We were well communicated to and the people wanting to get in were all reasonable. After an easy 35 minutes, we checked our babies in and left them for an Apple slumber party overnight. We heard from our Genius before 9 the next morning that all was well and our babies were ready to go home after their nap. No charges were laid because of the inconvenience this may have caused.

The real story…

It was a bright and sunny day with no sign of storm or other weather disturbance. We entered the Apple store and it was its usual insanely busy self.

I was carrying a 30 pound computer and no one acknowledged me. People even walked in front of me with their iPhones because, of course, they were more important. Those bitches be crazy.

We sat down, plugged in and waited. And, waited.

We finally got a Genius to talk to and he did one thing on the first computer when the lights powered down and the alarms sounded for no discernible reason. Everyone in the store was pacing, hyper-ventilating and making phone calls (mostly to 911, I assume). We were escorted out of the store before looting could begin (this is Canada, we wait at least 2 minutes before opening our re-usable canvas shopping bags to fill them).

Apple closed the doors and the panic began to build.

A grown-ass woman with headphones was yelling across the mall when I took this picture. She wanted the media notified immediately. I can only assume she had been in the store to purchase headphones with a volume control.

I checked my pits and my daughter’s pits regularly because the stench was so foul it had to be close – source of stench discovered no less than 20 feet away. His family, wisely, were sitting closer to us than him. The lack of A/C really helped.

People kept asking the staff through the tiny 1/8″ crack in between the glass doors if they could check in for their appointments (repeat: through the closed glass doors with the lights out). The Genius’ politely said ‘NO (idiot was implied). We can’t help you now? We have no power and no WiFi to book appointments for a later date.’

‘Don’t you have data?’ You are holding an iPhone idiot, you are the one with data.

‘Can’t you just reboot it?’ Hadn’t thought of that.

‘Why don’t you have a generator?’ Because we need to lock you out so we can’t do any business anyway. You need more than an Apple Genius my friend.

‘Can I just give you my credit card and you slip me a computer out the back?’ Psst. NO.

I had to get away from the doors for fear the questions would start sounding normal.

The intensity kept mounting as several Paul Blart look-alikes wandered through the halls looking busy even though they were not on Segways. None of them grabbed their right hip in the crowd of crazy-ass Apple fans and none of them were carrying pixie stix. I am thinking that movie may have not been as real as I suspected.

All other customers in the mall left and saved their money and time. We waited too long before saying bye to our babies for the night. No one, including ourselves, seemed to tell people entering the mall that it was on lock down. Let them discover it themselves.

Our babies were returned to us two days later after I followed up with several phone calls and dropped $200 at their feet – which smelled infinitely better than ‘the guy’.