I found this piece of petrified wood — a tree that has completely turned to stone — among the specimens in a rock collection at an estate sale.  I often run across rock and shell collections at these sales, and occasionally come home with one or two.  They’re the kind of thing that when you see them sitting out, you’re drawn to picking them up and studying them, turning them over in your hand, marveling at their markings.

What are you petrified of?  I confess that I am a little scared of technology.  OK, a lot scared.  It involves a language I don’t always understand, and changes faster than I can master it.  I recently had to face my worst technology-related fear — pomumphobia, or fear of the Apple Store (“pomum” meaning apple in Latin, and do I really have to tell you what phobia means?).  It began when I received an iPad for Christmas.  A few days later, we went to the AT&T Store to get a SIM card activated so that I could use the iPad even when I did not have access to wi-fi (if I’m using any technology-related words incorrectly, just roll your eyes, snicker, and move on).  The very enthusiastic and extremely annoying AT&T salesperson told me it would cost an additional $50/month to add it to my existing service.  So let’s see . . . that comes out to $600/year to play Scrabble and check Facebook and eBay on my shiny new toy?  No thank you. But wait, she said — let’s explore the options.  She then undertook an elaborate shell game, whereby I would only have to pay an additional $20/month, but of course, there was a multi-year contract involved, and then, of course, the “activation fee,” and oh, I’d have to give up the unlimited data on some of our family’s devices, and I’d have to perform 200 hours of community service, and bake a pan of brownies with a blindfold on.  After it was all said and done, it cost me $347 to have the privilege of only paying an additional $20/month.  It was worth it, though, if it would get me out of the AT&T store.  But after all that, she could not get a SIM card to work in my brand new iPad. After trying 3 different cards, she concluded that it was a problem with the iPad, and told me to take it to the Apple Store.  OK, that was fun.

So I made an appointment for the “Genius Bar” at the Apple Store.  Make no mistake — it’s called the Genius Bar to make sure you understand that they know everything and you are, well, stupid.  I hate the Apple Store.  It’s for young, hip people, and I am neither.  I don’t need the whole glossy Apple Store — I just need a Shriveled Up Apple Core Store for my limited needs.

All hail the Apple Store 

It was hate at first sight between me and the “Genius” who drew the short straw and was assigned to me.  And I have to add that I believe “Genius” was a stretch.  Next time I’m asking to see a Mensa membership card.  She was young and smarmy and had thick cat-eye makeup and her hair done up in a Rosie-the-Riveter bandana thing, which she was not rocking.  She had two facial piercings, which meant I could not look at her directly, or I would gag.

My Genius advised me that she was going to have to “wipe” my iPad and reload the software, to determine if it really was not working.  I just stared at the iPad.  She said, “You’ve backed up your iPad, right?  I continued to just stare at the impotent device.  She tried again — “Have you backed your stuff up to the cloud?”  I sat there thinking “I’m going to back you up to the cloud, bitch.”  Since I’d only had the iPad a short while, there wasn’t a lot on it, and of course, I hadn’t backed anything up because I have no idea how to, so I told her to just go ahead and wipe the 6 pictures of my dog and 4 apps from the face of my iPad.

After wiping the iPad, my Genius confirmed that yes, it was in fact, broken, which — Miss Smarty Pants — I already knew. But the good news was that they would replace it . . . in 3 to 5 days.  This is where things pretty much broke down.  The iPad was two weeks old, fully covered under an Apple warranty, and I am sitting in the freaking Apple Store, where there are shelves full of brand new iPads that presumably work, and my Genius is telling me I cannot have one of those, but must return to the Apple Store (and spend another 30-40 minutes trying to find parking) in 3-5 days to pick up my “part” (that’s Applespeak for “we’ll give you what we want to give you, when we want to give it to you”) from the Genius Bar.  This, I informed her, made no sense. So she repeated that Apple was fully standing behind its warranty and would replace my iPad . . . in 3-5 days with a replacement “part” from the Genius Bar, not from the forbidden retail side of the store.  And then, in her most condescending voice, she said, “Now do you understand?” as if her brilliant explanation was so crystal clear that even a toddler could understand it.  I’m pretty sure this is the point at which I skidded off the rails.

So reinforcements were called in, who determined it was in everyone’s best interests just to give me a new iPad right then and there.  They even went so far as to get one from off of the forbidden retail shelf.  I could almost touch it.  But just as quickly as Apple was willing to giveth, Apple taketh away, and the reinforcements said they couldn’t do that because I didn’t buy it at the Apple Store, but from (gasp!) another retailer.  At this point, I surrendered in defeat.  I took the paper my Genius handed me that entitled me to come back in 3-5 days and get a replacement “part,” and went home.

A few days later I got an email telling me my replacement “part” was ready for pickup.  As instructed, I handed my paper to the “man with the green iPad” who told me to have a seat and he would get someone to help me.  He started to point to the stools at the Genius Bar, and with tears welling up in my eyes, I begged him not to make me go back there. So he sat me down elsewhere, and got me someone of Above Average intelligence to help me instead.  The Above Average helper handed me a plain brown box wrapped in clear packaging tape with my replacement “part” in it.  I asked him if this was a new iPad, like the two-week old broken one it was replacing, or if it was a refurbished one. He told me that I was “the first person that would be using it.” As lawyers say to evasive witnesses — OBJECTION, NONRESPONSIVE.  What the hell kind of Applespeak was that?  I didn’t have the energy to jack with him any further, and I was more than a little worried that if I went off the rails again they’d call security, so we turned it on, confirmed the SIM card worked, and I went home with my refurbished replacement part (my “Furby,” as I like to call it) that I would be the first person to use.

It’s times like this when something comforting is called for.  Inspired by the petrified wood and my pomumphobia, I made Cinnamon Apple Crisp.  You don’t need to be a Genius to make it.  As it bakes, it fills the house with the tantalizing aroma of cinnamon and apples, and it is so good warm out of the oven — comforting and familiar, and not at all scary.  It’s even better with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream on the warm crisp.  In the summer months, it is equally delicious with fresh peaches.

Cinnamon and brown sugar cling to the raw apple slices

Warm from the oven, it’s irresistible

Apple Crisp that you will be the first person to eat