Yesterday, I went to buy a new Mac. My HP is disintegrating after years of hard use, and since I depend on my machine for income, it’s a totally justifiable purchase.

After talking to my Ubergeek posse, I settled on a MacBook White. Easy-peasy. There’s an Apple store just minutes from the boat, it was a slam-dunk.

Except. There’s this problem with my OLD bank (which I will blog about some other time). But due to their malfeasance (yes, that’s the right word for it), I was operating on a cash basis. No checks, no ATM/Debit card. Just green paper cashy money. Shouldn’t be a problem, right? I mean… money is ostensibly at the base of the plastic transations most of us are familiar with.

So me n’ the fam wander into the Apple store… where everyone converges on Jason, because I am naturally the spouse dragged into the store with our kids, right? They ask him what he needs. He tells them “I need you to help my wife out.” Love my man. They look startled, but one guy moves in, asks what I want, and is again startled when I rattle off my list of what I want to purchase. He logs it, smiles and tells me they’ll bring it up in 4 minutes, and proceeds to ring up my sale.

When I hand him a stack of bills, he blinks. Blinks! And says “I can’t take that. You’ll have to go to the back, where they have a cash drawer.” I am not sure why he didn’t take it back to the cash drawer and make change (a mere $12 worth), but I don’t argue. As I’m walking back, he says to me “I’ve been here for years and I have never, ever had someone try to pay with real money.” Hm.

So he hands me over to the guy in the back. Who proceeds to have to take all my information. Again. I inform him (again) that I’m a homeschooler and would like that discount. He blinks, (have you noticed the ubiquity of blinking at the Apple store? Must be the lighting) and asks for some form of official identification. I say I have none, but I’d be happy to call my  six year old over and ask him where he goes to school. “No, no, don’t do that!” he exclaims. Apparently a real six year old is dangerous or something. He allows me my discount.

Then, I hand him the stack of bills. He blinks. (I couldn’t make this up.) And then he asks me for my identification. For a cash purchase. Then I blink. Because, what else are you going to do? I ask him “Did you really just ask to see my ID because I handed you paper money?” He says yes. There’s clearly nothing for it; I dig into my backpack and fish out my CA drivers license. He scans it intently, and is reassured that I am really me and that that money is really mine. So since I’m really irritated by now, I ask “aren’t you going to check to see if they’re counterfeit?” He blinks. AGAIN! And then runs a pen over the bills. Which, um, is not how it’s done with the new bills; you hold them up for the hologram. Whatever. At this point I’m almost hoping they’re counterfeit because I’m betting they have no procedure whatsoever for handling that.

Finally, the young man hands me my purchase. And I walk back to Jason, who sees the look on my face. He’s chatting with another associate about the vagaries of iPhones. Jason asks “Babe… is everything OK?” and I look square at the other associate and say “I just got asked to show ID for a cash transation.”

Wait for it…

Yes. He blinked. And said “oh, you mean you were paying with a check.” I say “No. I handed him paper money. Y’know. The green stuff?” The young man stares at me for a few seconds, (no blink whatsoever) and then says “I have to apologize for that. I am really sorry. Um… is that as ridiculous as I think it is?” and I say yes. But as we’re walking away, I hear him say, wonderingly, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone try to pay with real money…”

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