I have this bumper sticker on the back of our car that reads: Today is the best day ever. I picked it up years ago at a conference and don’t know if there is some hidden meaning behind it but I just like it. Because even if you are having a somewhat lousy day, it still really is the best day ever because it is all you have. This day. This one day. This best day ever.
Our day did not start out the best today. My husband unplugged his phone where it had been charging and discovered it was dead. I don’t mean that it needed more charging, I mean it was dead. Blank black screen. Nothing.
He tried the usual things to wake up his phone but nothing. Nothing.
Never fear. We are avid Apple fans and our phones are covered by AppleCare contracts. One of the things this means is that we get special phone help when there is a problem. Only how do you call and get that special help when it is your phone that needs the help?
It pays to have a spouse who still has a working phone. My husband decided it would be easier still to just use the on-line chat service for help that he could access on his desktop computer.
This went on for awhile but it became painfully apparent that this problem was not going to be an easy one. Here was the choice: drive to Greenville, SC which is the location of the nearest Apple Store or go to the local Best Buy which is an authorized Apple dealer. Hmmmm…
He went ahead and made an appointment for the Apple Genius Bar in Greenville for tomorrow afternoon (appointments are necessary and not always easy to obtain) and then we called Best Buy, which did not open until 11 AM. I called since I am the one with the working phone. I was told that we did not need an appointment at Best Buy and to just come in.
Into the car on this rainy grey morning, down the highway to Best Buy we went. We arrived at about 11:15 and were herded over to the Geek Desk. That is the official name of where you can get help for a phone, computer and all such devices.
We were told that well, yes indeed, you DID need an appointment and the next available one was at 4:40 PM. By some small miracle the manager of the Geek Bar had mercy on us and agreed to run the diagnostics on Tom’s dead phone.
“It will take about 10 minutes or so,” he told us. Profuse thanks from us that he was willing to let us skip the line. Tom stood right at the desk and waited; I wandered and looked at refrigerators (we don’t need one—which is good since they seem to cost about $ 2500 for many of them), televisions (wow! amazing images on the new smart tv’s) and I even perused a lighting set up if I ever want to do a vlog (that’s a video blog) (not in my plans for the moment). Then I saw Caleb the Geek Squad manager returning.
The diagnosis was: dead. Absolutely, positively dead. Tom’s iPhone had failed all diagnostics. Caleb offered to return our phone to Apple, warning us it would take two weeks to get another phone or….OR we told him that we had made an appointment at the Apple Store in Greenville for tomorrow afternoon and he agreed that it was the best choice.
This is probably more than you wanted to know about our phone adventure but I share it for a couple of reasons. Even with this mini-disaster (and it really is mini when you think of all that is happening in the world at the moment) it threw our day off-kilter. Those best laid plans for how we planned to spend our Saturday got thrown a curve ball and all we could do was try our best to swing with hopes of eventually getting to home base with a working phone.
Home base was no where in sight for the moment. We harrumphed as to why a hip, wonderfully cool place like Asheville does not have its own Apple Store, moaned a bit about having to drive to Greenville tomorrow but then realized, it was still, indeed, the best day ever and we were lucky in about a million and one ways.
So even when your day does not feel like the best day ever, you will make it come closer if you just do the best you can, realize it is not really a major disaster and be thankful.
Tom’s iPhone is barely 18 months old and we are hoping the Genius Bar in Greenville will replace it on the spot. But who knows? You get up in the morning expecting things to go a certain way, but sometimes…..well, sometimes they just don’t go according to your plans. Oh well.
It’s still okay. It’s still the best day ever. Because after all, it’s the only day we have. The only one.
t
Thanks Jeanne. Quote from the Dalai Lama:
"There are only 2 days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live."
Agree with Tom that dependence on all these devices can be overwhelming and frustrating even though it keeps one up to date and informed. Having said this, I do love your blogs.
This is great reminder that our days don't always go as planned. And we still have the best days ever. I always enjoy your blogs even if I don't comment often. Thank you for writing about every day things and memories that we "people of a certain age" can relate to.