Singing the Praises of itunes!!!!

Today I am going to sing the praises of itunes/apple. But first I must tell you my sorry story.

My plan for today was going to be cleaning my room and doing laundry. Then my eleven year old, John Paul, reminded me that I told him that I would take him to Big Lots to check out their MP3 players. He only had a certain amount of Christmas money to spend and he really wanted one. I was not really convinced that we would be purchasing a quality product but off we went.

The woman behind the counter practically fell out laughing. Sold out. Long time ago. Try Kmart. Ok. Kmart is around the bend, so we went. Nothing left from the Christmas rush, and the after Christmas rush. Now I am looking at this boy's face. He was so disappointed. Well, what would it hurt me if we drove over to Target. So I called my oldest daughter Emily, gave her instructions for lunch and headed the van in the direction of Target.

"Mom, I know this wasn't what you had planned for your day, but thank you for driving me around." He said this so sadly and sweetly. My heart broke and melted at the same time. I was now on a mission to find this boy an inexpensive MP3 player!

Target did not have what he wanted in his price range either. So I bought us a popcorn and two pops and said, "Let's go to Best Buy".

As he was getting into the van he tripped and spilled his pop all over the van floor. I could see in his face, he was about to cry. The tears were welling up. I said very gently,"It's okay Johnny, here, share mine."

So we were on our way to Best Buy, he was holding our bag of popcorn, and I took a rough turn, and wouldn't you know, the popcorn falls. I kid you not, this boy was having a really bad day. And now the tears came. I said, "John, this was not your fault. It was mommy's fault. And you only spilled a little. Don't be upset. Mommy is not upset with you. Don't worry."

Now I begin praying that I can find an inexpensive MP3 player that I can afford to help him out with, cause there was no way I was going to let that boy go home without one!!

So we get to Best Buy, and there was something he could be happy about, and I chipped in, started him off with a $15 itunes giftcard and we happily drove home. He was so excited because it had a lot of features he wanted, even though it wasn't a touch screen, (which is what he was looking for, but only having $70 in Christmas money, could not afford) and he was very satisfied with his purchase.

Now for most people this would be their happy ending, but, alas, we are Marciniaks so there is always more to the tale. I went off to do laundry and John Paul went off to use my computer to start using his itunes card. A short while later, Tyler calls to me, and tells me that John Paul used a butter knife to rub off the activation number. You know that area on the back of a gift card that says, "Gently rub with coin", the operative words being "gently" and "coin"! Yeah. He massacred it.

One hour on the computer, three phone calls and an email later, I sent a message to someone at the itunes, apple company. My dear hubby had an itunes giftcard for $15 that he had received for Christmas so he gave it to John until our issue was resolved.

And now this is why I love itunes/apple. Less than 2 hours later, I had a response in my email with our number, (there was a code on the bottom of the card that I had emailed in and from that they could get my activation code) and thanks to a very friendly worker named Charlie, my hubby typed in the number and received our credit to itunes! I love them and I want you all to love them too. What a great company! They were awesome!

And I did get my bedroom clean and some laundry done.

Yep, super mom wins again!