I could pay another few hundred to have Apple fix it, or I could trust some crackpot off the internet to sell me a replacement battery and the directions to fix it. 1 crackpot, $90, and a little home mojo later, I had a working iPod. For a month.

It still works now in my car, but that’s about all it’s good for. After $500, frustration, and home fixits, I needed a new solution. Being in graduate school at the time, I looked at the Apple education program. Then I went to Best Buy. I am not a fan of Best Buy, and dislike big box retailers in general. I can’t even remember what I was there for originally, but I thought I’d check out their selection of Apple products all the same. I could get the new 1GB iPod Shuffle for $140 on the Apple site with the education discount or pay $150 at Best Buy and get their warranty program for an extra $10.

I went the Best Buy route, since if it got damaged, they would supposedly replace the Shuffle, no questions asked. A few weeks ago, my shuffle stopped playing mid-song. I had charged it up recently, but I thought it was a dead battery anyway. I took it home and connected it to the Mac, nothing happened. The little light glowed yellow, then green, but no recognition by iTunes, no appearance on the desktop, de nada! I went to the Apple support site, Mac OSX hints, etc., but couldn’t find a way to start it up. It was officially dead, and I was sure my warranty had expired by now.

Pinch me, I had about 5 months left. I was about to use one of those warranty things. What hoops would I have to jump through? What perils would I be forced to endure to get a crappy old 1GB iPod?

I had kept all the receipts, warranty thingie, packaging and assorted ephemera in the case of just such an emergency. I promptly forgot the packaging, brought in the warranty and the dead iPod. While driving to the store I realized this is a super-designed Apple product—there is no place to put a serial number on it. I continued on to the store anyway, to see what would happen. I imagined long lines of grumpy Chicagoans, despondent employees, apathetic managers, the works.

Instead, I walked right up to the customer service counter, told the lady there my story, and gave her my iPod and warranty. She looked it over, and put the iPod in a plastic bag. I had moved and so we updated and compared my addresses and driver’s license. She told me to go to the shelf, grab a new iPod 1GB, and come back. So, I did. Clippy iPod, here I come!

I went back to bring her the new iPod, and she told me that she was sorry, but that the difference in price (the new ones are now $80) would have to be given to me on a gift card. My jaw dropped. The what? Yup, the gift card. I felt like I’d just robbed them. I had a dead iPod and a warranty, and I walked out with a new iPod, a new warranty, and $60 on a gift card. Are the pigs flying yet?