There are certain things in life which are awkward. Asking a girl out for the first time, discussing the birds and the bees with the folks, explaining why the cat exploded and so on. And then there’s going to the Apple Store.

Ok, it’s not anything that in the grand scheme of things really gets to the nub of human experiences, the truth behind why we are here and what have you, but given the fact that people are talking about vapid things such as X faxing, who is sleeping with whom and how much dribble they’ve wiped from their mouths, I guess this is still one level over.

The old IPod I owned which was about 5 years old finally developed one fault too far, the headphone socket had come loose somehow, which meant the sound only came from the left headphone. Oh dear god, think of the children stuff, you”ll all agree.

But there was the off chance it could be repaired and therefore save a fair bit of the green which makes the world go round, and therefore the decision was made to make my way to the temple of Steve Jobs to prey for forgiveness and hope the lord found it within his heart to not overcharge for a fix.

There’s something slightly wrong with the picture when you enter an Apple store. Everything is cleaned within an inch of it’s life, the tables and lights appear to be in perfect feng shui. The staff are the happiest people on the planet, all in their twenties, all uniform in their blue t-shirts yet still wearing odd bits of toilet paper and kinky boots to show they are still unique and happening and all that. You just want to cuddle them till they can’t breathe. Please for the love of god, stop breathing.

Each of them appear to be equipped with every apple device going, you know they just got them for carrying round in the store, yet somehow they still are able to maintain a sense of superiority over us normal mortals. Unfortunately the typical customer has that same disease (Smug git syndrome).

The majority of customers also appear to share common interests, such as typing texts using an Iphone, holding at least something apple related in their hands at all times, and all seem to stride across the open floor, almost floating along like all must make way for their arrival. Yes, if you’re in an apple store, you’re important.

I had to make an appointment at the “Genius Bar”, the place to go for all things you need to make your life with Apple a happier one.

After being advised by one of the happpy smurfs that they could fix the headphone socket I was directed to type various things into a laptop first to type in what the problem was with the headphone socket and then return with aforementioned IPod at allotted time, I sat for a while on a wooden bench, marvelling at the sights of happy people exchanging criticisms about swans or the latest painting of crap, who knows, when I was called up and then spoke to this hip and happening guy. He asked what the problem was.

I repeated all that I typed in earlier using speech, the traditional method of communication in olden days, and he confirmed my diagnosis in the most technical manner, getting headphones and listening to what was on. He said, yes that’s right but we can’t fix that. LIES, TREACHERY AND DECEIT!!!!

So resigned to having to pick a new device, off we go to look at row upon row of tables containing the entire apple range (all three types of ithing that go in the pocket, the maxipad doesn’t count), it seems everything needs a touchscreen with access to everything that costs $67 a pop and can also be an organiser, a flashlight for horror film situations and a defibrillator which only work when you touch the two paddle pictures on the screen.

It’s because of freedom giving things like the IPhone has helped along with Crackberries and all those dumbphones to change habits for the worse. People carry them in their hands all the time, and it seems that every 2 minutes they must be checked just in case someone tweeted that they had a poo. LOL. Come on, earlier this evening while waiting for take away, (My diet is killing me slowly….help me.) tables of people stopped talking to each other and all got their phones out instead. Do we need to say anything other than “What is wrong with you?”

In the end it was an expensive visit to the shrine, but my faith has been renewed with the IPod “Classic”, the same device that I brought in except it was updated with a bigger disk, slightly thinner and a longer battery life. And somehow I now too once again feel better about myself, nothing to do with the purchase of the replacement IPod, just the fact that I’m not one of “those who glide.”