Once Upon A Genius

I made a 10am appointment at the Mac store for my MacBook. Note to others in Pittsburgh: Don't make 10am appointments. The geniuses (genii?) are in morning meetings until 1015. All the appointments are pushed back. Make yourself a 1015 appointment and bring a book.

Anyway, my genius opened up the MacBook and confirmed my suspicion that something was not right with the cd drive. He feels there is a mini-disk stuck in there, which I assured him is impossible. Then an interesting thing happened.

The Mac Genius whipped out a little light on a stick, like the doctors use to look in your ears and throat. He began using this tool to give my MacBook a medical examination. It was very strange to watch. I started to get worried my laptop would be ill or need a shot. He next whipped out tweezers. Long, skinny tweezers. He shoved them around inside there, in much the way I could have done at home I suppose.

Eventually, he determined the problem was much too deep for him. Which is so funny because I'm reading The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, and the chapter I'm on is titled "How Deep Do You Want to Go?"

I guess that might only be funny if you're me...

Anyway, the genius told me there was naught to do but take the computer apart, something that would cost me $300.

I asked what would happen if I did not get the optical drive repaired. Evidently, I'm looking at a computer with no cd drive. Since I don't have a spare $300 right now and I don't really use the cd drive very much, I'm going to forgo this repair until...probably forever.

My next planned computer purchase will be a new Mac desktop, so I can move to use the MacBook only for travel and interviews. (This of course after I buy a sofa and bookshelves and the other nesting items required for the downstairs!)

In the end, I got a nice bike ride in this morning and discovered that, if nothing else, I know how to diagnose my own computer. Maybe I should apply to work as a genius! I do, after all, own tweezers.