SEQUEL TO LEMONS AND LEMONADE

JULY 9, 2024 – I concluded yesterday’s technology episode on a positive note—specifically, the likely prospect that I could jawbone the manager of the MOA Apple Store to reimbursement me for the hefty cost of data recovery. Once I’d cinched that deal, I figured I’d ship the device straight away to the data salvage outfit. A few days later after that part of the mission was concluded (successfully, I trusted), I’d turn the laptop back over to Apple to fix or replace within another few days. By July 20, I hoped, my digital life would be back to normal.

I went to bed at midnight and soon fell into a trouble-free slumber. Well . . . not entirely trouble-free: the central feature of my dreams was the attempt by the Decembrists to up-end Tsarist rule in Russia nearly a century before the Bolshevik Revolution ended the 300-year Romanov Dynasty. This dream sequence had absolutely nothing to do with my all-absorbing laptop issues—except it did, indirectly. Absent my hour-long wait at the Apple store yesterday morning because of my MacBook problem, I wouldn’t have taken such a deep dive into my real book on Russian history.

The author had devoted abundant ink to describing the succession of 29-year-old Nicholas I in December 1825 after the sudden death (from typhus) of his older brother, Tsar Alexander, nemesis of Napoleon, and renouncement by Konstantin, the next brother in line. A group of army officers, disillusioned by Alexander’s transformation from liberal to reactionary, had already conspired to revolt. On the public occasion of soldiers swearing their allegiance to Nicholas, the new Tsar, the rebel solders were on the march to Senate Square in St. Petersburg, the Tsarist capital. A rumor had been circulating that Nicholas was a usurper. The consequent rallying cry among the rebels was “Konstantin and a Constitution.” As the author explains, however, “[F]ew had any idea what a constitution was (some of the troops thought it was the wife of Konstantin).”

In the end, the rebel leaders—the Decembrists, as they would be called—had miscalculated. Vastly outnumbered and under-organized, they fell victim to Nicholas’s brutal order, “Fire!” When the mayhem ended, 60 of the rebels lay dead on the frosty cobblestones near the Neva.

In any event, reading about the Decembrists while I was waiting at the Apple store had made a bigger impression than had my laptop woes, at least as dream content.

Upon waking and realizing it was July in Minnesota and not December in Russia, I was prepared to drive to MOA and make my deal, as it were, with the manager of the Mall Apple store. I was fully prepared for success. I’d have to wait bit, however, since I first had to address pressing client needs and second . . . I had to wait for the store’s late opening at 10:00.

If you are to know anything about me apart from my abiding interest in Russian history, it’s that the Mall of America rattles me to the core. On the surface, I’m overwhelmed by the place, by its 500 stores on three levels under one gigantic roof and surrounded by thousands of parking spots in multi-layered ramps. Just below the surface of my visual impressions, I’m disturbed by what MOA represents: consumerism on steroids. But deep down, I feel greatly conflicted. If I detest the gross scale of this monstrous display of the Great American Appetite and want never to get within 10 miles of it, which is impossible, since the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport—our gateway to the world—is less than two miles away, in a moment of honesty, I must acknowledge that I’m an active beneficiary of the very system that produces such excess.

In how many transactions over my career as a real estate finance lawyer have I contributed to paving over the earth? How many office buildings, apartment complexes, tract housing projects have I facilitated? And if I can assuage my guilt a little by the rationalization that if I hadn’t played the role, some competitor would have gladly taken my place, I can’t dodge the reality that by assisting others to build developments where grass and trees once grew and birds sang and wildlife wandered, I’ve accepted substantial remuneration, which has allowed my family and me to consume “lots of stuff” and take long trips on fossil-fuel guzzling aircraft taking off on the impervious tarmac a short distance away. Who am I to criticize excessive materialism, when a large part of my retirement savings and income derive from an economy that depends on that gross consumption? Half of what I have is because of the insatiable appetites of other Americans.

As I hiked from the east end of the Mall westward to the Apple store, halfway to the Black Hills of South Dakota, it seemed, I wrestled with my own hypocrisy: the height of my ideals vs. the depth of my realties.

By the time I reached my destination, I was in a less than a happy mood. A young salesperson greeted me just inside the doorway and asked how he could help. I explained. He scrolled along the screen of his tablet for a moment, then informed me that my wait time would be around four hours. I went straight to my question: reimbursement for the cost of data recovery. His response was a dull “No.” In response I kept a lid on my emotions, but my disappointment found expression. His “No” found redundancy. I asked rhetorically if the woman I’d spoken with yesterday afternoon at an Apple-endorsed data recovery firm had been telling me a “fairy tale” regarding Apple’s favorable reimbursement policy. He claimed he’d never heard of such a policy.

I asked to speak to his manager, a tall white-haired guy, whose name was especially easy to remember, since it was spelled the same way as mine. He turned out to be all about “No” as well, not once, not twice, but firmly thrice. Nevertheless, we wound up having a long, cordial, and rewarding conversation. His career background was replete with business and fairly high level political experience. It reflected well on him, I thought, when in a positive light he invoked the name of former Governor Arne Carlson, a moderate Republican—back when there was such an animal.

If my mission had failed, at least I’d enjoyed a satisfying, substantive conversation about the issues of the day.

My options had been narrowed. I decided it was time to ratchet back my optimism. I’d have to accept the loss of certain precious files—my birthday letters to our sons, for example; other writings that I couldn’t recreate. I couldn’t look back; only forward. I’d go back to the Apple store closer to home, drop off my laptop and let the techies work it over and restore it or hand me a replacement. I made appointment on line—3:45 this afternoon.

Without getting too drenched through a 10-minute deluge, I managed to stay on the road and bolt into the local mall—with a mere 150 stores within its sprawl. In case my appointment was delayed, I’d slipped my old laptop into the bag next to the dead one. I could get some work done. But in case of an even longer wait, I’d also grabbed The Story of Russia.

 A staffer greeted me immediately, looked up my name on his tablet and sent me to the “genius” bar at the back of the store. Less than a minute later, one “Jordan” introduced himself and asked, “What can I do for you?”

“Well . . .” I said, drawing the dead device out of my computer case, “on Sunday, this fairly new MacBook Pro refused to wake up, refused to charge, and apparently chose to die instead.” I opened the screen and . . .

It was at this juncture where I nearly fell off my chair. The Apple icon appeared in the middle of the screen, with some tiny print below it. “It’s not brain dead!” I shouted.

Jordan hooked up the laptop to another computer, conducted the equivalent of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and ran a full battery of diagnostic tests. All systems were fine. The problem, Jordan surmised, was a glitch in the software. The prescription: erase the hard-drive and reload it.

Things got even better. Because I had my old laptop with me, I was able to transfer all non-backed up files from the new laptop to the old, so that in the end I wouldn’t lose anything.

A half hour later, I was on my way, free of charge. Jordan is my hero.

As I drove home in the bright sunshine, I savored the sequence of events and encounters that had led me full circle. Would I have reached such a perfect result but for all the imperfect stops along the way? Yesterday’s delay and failure; the misinformation a data recovery rep had given me over the phone, which “fairy tale” is what led me to MOA (and disappointment) today—and affected the timing of my return to the original store this afternoon; the random assignment of Jordan to my case; my laptop’s decision to throw off brainwaves at the very moment Jordan sat down to hear my story; his ability to restore the laptop to life; my chance to transfer files because, anticipating lengthy delays again today, I’d thought to stick my old laptop into the bag.

America. What a great country. (And how quickly we can ignore our own hypocrisy.)

Now that the day is done, I can resume reading The Story of Russia. Given a choice between living in Russia and living in America, I know which I’d choose.

I wonder what dreams I’ll have tonight.

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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson