The Blonde Duck and the Ben Enrage the Apple Store Genises

First of all, let's get this out of the way. The "geniuses" at the Apple Store are a bunch of arrogant, presumptuous five hour employees who think that a over-inflated title makes them more brilliant than the professionals frequenting their store for over-priced products. I got two words for these so-called geniuses: Bite me.

On Sunday, Ben and I visited "Lock and Terror"- Ben's name for our upscale shopping "experience" near our house. It's not a collection of stores (mall)--it's a shopping "experience." As we walked toward the store, I went over the list of questions in my head for the "geniuses". Walking into the modernly designed Apple Store, I stood and watched as Ben zeroed in on a laptop. Teenagers were looking up Kelly Clarkson pictures and movie times on the cheap($1100) table of laptops. Twenty somethings and college students were trying to ask intellectual-sounding questions while they investigated the higher priced laptops to the brilliant Apple employees standing around.

These brilliant employees looked like slightly altered clones of each other in their matching t-shirts, khakis, bad shoes and gel-laden hair. They wore ipods around their neck in a leather pouch and consistently adjusted their square black glasses.

"Can I help you?" a pasty face loomed in my peripheral vision, staring at me hopefully through his smudged square glasses. I instantly disliked him--not just because his shirt said "one-to-one". One look in his eyes, and I knew he was an Apple disciple: a mindless clone brainwashed to believe that Apple was superior technology that only Gods could understand--and we as consumers were minions.

"Sure," I said, glaring at him. "What's the square root of pi?"

"Excuse me?" he said, taken aback.

"You're a genius right?" I challenged. His chest immediately puffed out with pride. "What's the square root of pi?"

"Would you like to look at our baseline laptop?" he sneered at me.

"Would you like to tell me what the square root of pi is?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. He turned to Ben, who was investigating the laptop. "Can I help you sir?" he asked, with a welcoming smile.

"No," Ben said bluntly, not even looking at him. I smirked as he stormed off, and began to play with a laptop myself.

A few minutes later, another "genius" tried his luck. "May I help you?" Apple Clone 2 asked.

"Why do you call yourselves geniuses?" I asked.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"Well, are you a genius?" I asked. "What was your SAT score?"

"Uhhh"--he responded. "Considering you can't come up with a witty retort, I'm guessing that's a low score. So why do you call yourselves geniuses? Isn't that a bit presumptuous?"

"Uhhhh"-- he eloquantly retorted. Then his eyes widened in alarm when he saw what Ben was doing on the screen. "Can I help you sir?" he asked, staring helplessly as Ben checked out the specs the way tech people do.

"No," Ben said bluntly. Apple Clone 2 backed away slowly and disappeared in a sea of blue shirts, teenagers, entitled adults and parents wielding credit cards. As we moved onto the computers, Apple Clone 1 reappeared.

"Yes, that is a computer," he said, grinning broadly. Glaring at him, I said, "Did you figure out the square root of pi yet?" Ben continued to fiddle with the computer as I continued to look around the monitor/computer. "I promise you ma'am, that is a computer."

"I'm looking for the USB drive," I snapped. He pointed to it and smirked before waltzing off proudly. Narrowing my eyes at him, I glared at him.

As we floated through the store, I was amazed by the amount of people buying Apple products. People were plucking ipods and Nanos and laptops like there was no tomorrow. The "genius bar" was hopping with desperate people waving products in the "genius's" faces.

Rolling my eyes, I resigned myself to fiddling with the laptop while I waited on Ben to finish investigating. Suddenly, a screeching alarm that sounded like a thousand cats screaming in agony sounded and Ben began waving his arms wildly.

"I just wanted to see the magnet in the cord," he yelled to me over the noise. Everyone in the store stopped and glared at Ben, who was trying to fix the noise himself. Apple Clone 2 was still talking to the customer next to me, apparently pretending the noise would disappear.

Finally, a few Apple Clones turned off the noise. Ben tried to explain that it wasn't his fault the magnetic cord he was so curious about was tightly attached to the alarm cord, and that if he simply wanted to see if it would reconnect the way the commericials said it would. The yuppies, overzealous parents and arrogant adults continued to glare at us, and the Apple Clones were no longer enthusiastic about helping us.

We left the store and walked back to our car.

"Jerks," Ben said.

"They're dumb too," I said. "They don't even know the square root of pie."

Not only did we succeed in irritating the yuppies, we managed to irritate the Apple Clones as well. It was a good day.