The Return of the Precious

Once again, fortune smiled on me today as I lucked into another iPad 2. I traveled to Pentagon City shopping mall at what I thought would be decent enough hour to be early for the unannounced 9 AM opening for iPad customers. I arrived at 8:15 AM to find a line stretching to around 200 people, across the mall, started by people arriving at 5 AM just to be the first in line.

One week after the damn thing launched.

Honestly, if Apple didn't sell 1,000,000 iPad 2 units in this first week of availability, I will be very surprised, particularly if the lines around the country have been as deep and consistent as here in DC.

Knowing that I wouldn't be one of the lucky few to buy one of the eventually 15 available units that day, I settled in to wait for the store to open so I could attend to some other housekeeping matters, namely the replacement of some corrupted install discs.

Halfway through my reinstall, I noticed a woman straggling in who wasn't part of the Original 15 of that day. She handed over her iPad 2 ticket (little slips of paper handed out to the first people in line for an iPad 2) and demanded her device. Turns out, someone in the line had a change of heart and let her have the ticket.

Where there is one, there is more.

I sidled up to a matronly store clerk I had become friendly with in the minutes prior to entering the store.

"Did anyone else change their mind about an iPad 2?", I asked innocently.

She replied with a hint of a gleam in her eye. "What are you looking for?"

I answered "What do you have?"

She winked and disappeared behind a hidden door in the Apple store. No joke, the Apple store has hidden doors which open with a press from a store employee.

She reappeared a few minutes later with a white iPad 2, 16 Gb, WiFi only. I bought it on the spot. Better to be at least equipped to this degree than be without. At any rate, it puts me in a position to argue for getting an iPad 2.5/3 if the Fall 2011 rumors are true.

Thus, I am now with an iPad 2 again and the world has returned to its proper axis.