JOPLIN, Mo. —
The other day I spent an hour trying to open something called an “Apple account.”
After an hour of trying to type on a keyboard the size of a booger, I finally completed the necessary work to open my account. All the message on my phone said that I had to do was verify my Apple account ID and email address.
To do that all I had to do was go to my email, open the message from Apple and hit “verify”. But when I opened the Apple email and hit “verify,” nothing happened. So, I hit “verify” again and still nothing happened.
Thinking that the problem was with my computer, I sent the Apple email from my personal computer to my work computer. When I then opened the Apple email on my work computer and hit “verify,” something happened. The screen told me to type in my email address and my Apple password. When I did that I got a message that said the verification processed had “timed out” and that I needed to try again. So I did. And I did. And I did. Until I was madder than Mitt Romney at a Chris Christie rally.
I was mad at the Apple people, but really I probably should have been mad at our 14-year-old daughter, Emma. See, Emma is the reason I was trying to open an Apple account in the first place.
On Tuesday evening, I walked into our house looking forward to an evening of rest and relaxation. But when I stepped into our house, I found my wife and Emma. My wife gave me her “she’s YOUR daughter” look. Whenever Emma is in trouble, my wife gives me that look. When Emma is not in trouble or does something to make us proud, my wife gives me her “YOU had nothing to do with this” look.
Emma, when I walked into our house, gave me her “This is the worst thing in the whole world and my life is ruined forever and ever and Mom is mad at me and it’s not even my fault. She is so mean” look.
In case you’re wondering, after looking at my wife and Emma, I had my “where is the beer?” look on my face.
The reason my wife and Emma had their looks on was because Emma had dropped her iPhone, breaking it to the point that it was virtually useless. I didn’t know what the fuss was about.
“Relax, it’s not big deal,” I told Emma.
Of course, I am a moron. I did not understand that there is no way that a teenager can be expected to spend more than a few minutes separated from her cellphone. A teenager without a cellphone is much like a turtle on its back. If help does not arrive quickly, the teenager ceases to exist.
So I put my thoughts of an evening of rest and relaxation on hold while we all piled into my car and drove to the 24-hour retail store in our town. There, the nice lady at the phone station told us that she didn’t have any iPhones, but she called one of the 24-hour retail stores in Joplin and discovered that it had plenty of iPhones. So we drove to Joplin.
As it turns out, all three of our phone contracts were up. So, after an hour, we all wound up getting new phones. The phones we have are called the iPhone 4S. My wife and Emma’s old phones were called the iPhone 3. The Apple people apparently don’t pay the guy who comes up with the names for their phones very much.
My phone was so old that I don’t think it even had a name. I’m guessing if it did it would have been called the Apple -7.
But now I have a new phone that, I’m told , will allow me to do all sorts of neat things. I have been told I can “download Apps” and “download music” and even get some lady to tell me what to do. Although, frankly, I already have a lady who does that.
I can’t wait to do all the things my new phone can do, and I will as soon as I CAN OPEN MY (EXTREMELY BAD WORD) APPLE ACCOUNT.
Do you have an idea for Mike Pound’s column? Call him at 417-623-3480, ext. 7259, or email him at mpound@joplinglobe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mikepoundglobe.
Local News
Mike Pound: All on account of an Apple account
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