Battlemouth

I’m sure many of you read my nail-biting, heart-wrenching account about a week ago concerning my precious iPhone, Eva, taking a suicide leap into the sink. The article concluded with a happy ending . . . but it was full of false hopes and promises.
Eva and I were doing just fine for a few days after I wrote the article–frolicking through fields of flowers and unicorns and puppies and rainbows, holding hands, looking at the stars together, syncing all night long . . . . It was truly a blissful existence. But then, the iPhone gods became bored, and decided to press their giant red SMITE button. And suddenly, Eva white-screened, and my heart shattered at my feet.
I tried everything–I plugged her into every outlet and computer in my apartment; I reset her a million times, fully restored, and even took the SIM card out, but alas, the short in her innards remained. She was fully functional, but I just couldn’t see anything as the entire screen was white. In an act of desperation, I posted another plea to my twitter followers, who responded with very little advice this time other than to take Eva to the Apple store. I was hesitant, however, as both visible water damage dots were the glaring red letters of guilt. For those of you who don’t know, if those dots are red they void the iPhone’s warranty. There are four altogether – one in the headphone jack, one in the charger at the bottom, and two internally (if the Apple care specialists want to get REALLY anal).
Someone on my personal blog summed it up best: “Suck it up, put on something cute, and take your phone into the Apple store.”
So with a sigh, that’s exactly what I did, expecting nothing but the worst.

After about an hour of wait time (wherein I set all the homepages on the computers to Battlemouth), I was led to my shining angel of customer service: Shane. He had a multi-coloured mohawk–half red, half black, and had some pretty ridiculous tribal tattoos going up his forearms. Before I even set Eva down before him, he complimented my tattoos. Huzzah! My hope meter went up a point. So I told my story, trembled my lip a little bit, played with my golden snitch necklace, and Shane told me he would give me a new phone. Yes, he saw the water dots and YES, he knew that Eva had pretended to be a fish, but he told me since it was a first offense and since I had just bought my phone in November that he would void their policy just this once.
I nearly leapt across the Genius bar and hugged him, but I needed to give him time to pull my brand-new, shiny iPhone out of the box. Eva 2.0 lives, all pretty and shiny and new and sitting innocently on my desk as I type this.

I was beyond impressed with Applecare’s service. I promised Shane Oatmeal Raisin cookies because I was nearly in tears with joy. It’s nice to know that they appreciate the investment that customers make in their products, and that they protect their loyalty by going above and beyond any other customer service experience. Despite the ridiculous wait times, I was intensely pleased with my whole experience. And this time, I’m not letting my phone near ANY water. Ever.