HOW TO KNOW YOU'RE OLD

I know there are many symptoms of old age: arthritic pain, senior moments, balance problems---you know, the usual suspects. But, if you really want to know you are obsolete, go into an Apple store.

Twenty miles south of us is a mega-mall called Coconut Point with every store you've ever heard of---and quite a few you don't know. My wife and I drove there Saturday because I needed to go to the Apple Store to check out my iPod.

Last summer in England, I cleverly knocked a glass of red wine with my elbow and saturated my iPod. I desperately and immediately sopped ip up with paper towels. It played in a muted way briefly and then conked out. I rarely use it here since I have it on my computer, but I figured, if I were to use it in England this summer, I better see if it were salvageable or needed replacement, so to the Apple I went.

We walked into this chromium and glass palace, a high-tech heaven, where the first thing I noticed was that I was light years older than anyone else in the place. At least 75% were teenagers or younger. and most of the remaining 25% were probably their parents.

I blithely walked up to one of the blue t-shirted floor walkers and started to explain my problem. He politely cut me short and explained I had "to make an appointment" and took me to the back of a store where another attendant, who looked seventeen, registered me on his iPad and informed me it would be twenty minutes before anyone would be available to help me.

We looked around the store, laid out in a series of tables filled with laptops, iPads and iPods, chockablock with people and sales personnel, testing, playing and explaining the variety of wares. It became increasingly apparent that this relatively young company is a sellers market. How many products do you know that generate 20 billion ($20,000,000,000!!!) in sales their first year---but that is exactly what the iPad did! They are brilliant marketers, creating a mystique that they are a special world, and you are lucky to be able to partake of it.

Within the twenty minutes, a sales rep came up to me. He in turn turned me over to another rep, who turned me over to another---a real double play. The first rep took care of my old iPod; the second sold me on the new iPod; the third explained it to my wife and me. I ended up with an iPod Nano and. by recycling my old red-wined iPod,got a very good deal on this new one. It is about 1 1/4" square, a quarter of the size of my previous iPod and has four times the capacity!

Now I know I'm truly obsolete! But, wow, I'll play a megaton of music.