My son is leaving for college in a week and his mother is freaking out a bit. I think this is a normal part of human evolution. Actually, she’s doing a great job figuring out how to fit the entire contents of our 4500 square foot house into a 10 by 12 dorm room that he will share with another guy. To ease her burden, she quite reasonably assigned a few tasks to me today, mostly centered around technology. Among other things, the spacebar on my son’s Mac Book sticks. Frankly, I don’t see a problem with this. I am sure his freshman English professor will have no problem with a paper that looks like this:

Theprimarythesisofthisnovelisthattheprotagonistwasdrivenbygreednothonesty.

Itisnottruetosaythatgreedisbad,buttheauthordoesleadusinthatdirection.

But, my wife is calling the shots so I agreed to solve the spacebar problem. My first thought was that I could take it to the Apple Store and have them fix it. But, before I trekked over to the mall, I wanted to make sure that the twenty-somethings with nose rings, tattoos, and bright blue shirts that work there know how to fix mechanical problems that can’t be solved with a cool new app. So, I did what anyone from my generation might do. I called the store.

Bad idea. Of course, I got a recording. Not a problem for an experienced traveler like me. I have figured out ways to get to live agents with major U.S. Airlines (our motto: “the customer comes last”). Apple, it turns out, is actually more savvy than the airlines at frustrating the crap out of their customers, which I wouldn’t have guessed. It took me three tries, but I did finally defeat their high tech anti-customer system to get to a live human being. To save you some time on your next call to Apple, here are the rough transcripts of my 3 calls.

CALL #1

Apple: Hello, thank you for calling Apple. I can help you in full sentences. Please state your problem.

Bruce: I need to speak to an agent.

Apple: OK, I will transfer you to an agent, but so we can help you better, can you please state your problem.

Bruce: My spacebar is stuck.

Apple: OK, do you need help with a keyboard you own or a keyboard you want to buy?

Bruce: A keyboard I own.

Apple: Here are some steps you can take with your…..

Bruce: Click

CALL #2

Apple: Hello, thank you for calling Apple. I can help you in full sentences. Please state your problem.

Bruce: I need to speak to an agent.

Apple: OK, I will transfer you to an agent, but so we can help you better, can you please state your problem.

Bruce: Nope.

Apple: Thank you for calling Apple. Click.

Bruce: FUCK!

CALL #3

Apple: Hello, thank you for calling Apple. I can help you in full sentences. Please state your problem.

Bruce: I need to speak to an agent.

Apple: OK, I will transfer you to an agent, but so we can help you better, can you please state your problem.

Bruce (in very urgent tone): Help, my hair is on fire!!!

Apple: I will transfer you to an agent. You have 2 callers in line in front of you.

Bruce: Thanks!