And Einstein wore khakis.

A little red Ford (on sweet loan for two weeks) took me past my usual borders to the Chestnut Hill Mall and to the Apple Store last night. I had registered online for an appointment with a "genius" and at the store there were two, no three-- recognizable because their intellect was embroidered in small letters on the front of their T-shirts. There was also an irate woman demanding an answer from a hapless teenage employee to the question, "Why does Apple make such lousy, unreliable products?!" Her two young boys looked embarrassed. The rest of us stroked our broken iPods and whispered to them not to listen to such cruel, and so clearly foundationless words.

Oddly amidst the waiting and the drawn faces of people in line for help with their machines, I left the store an hour later happy. A man who looked not unlike Albert Einstein-- making me wonder if he has cultivated the look since starting work with Apple or whether if Einstein had lived today he would have found himself relegated to a job in customer service-- told me cheerily that the iPod was still under warranty and that they were going to send me out of the store with a brand new machine. For the price of a few CD's.

It's freshly charged, I started the day by discovering parts of Boston's urban shoreline I hadn't seen, and I'm about to go bring two cats home to my apartment for a two-week visit. It's a good day.