I have been writing this blog every morning since November 15, 2022. On most days, when I sit down to write, I know what I am going to write about. Something strikes me as important enough to put down on paper. This is not one of those days. I have no idea what I am going to say.

There is so much that I am unhappy about. Some is personal, some is global. I normally stick to the global, but I am going to rant about the personal first.

As I reported during our vacation earlier this month, Edie’s cell phone disappeared somewhere in South Carolina, where it now must lie. But we couldn’t find it, either in the car (where she first noticed it was not in her purse), nor at the restaurant where we had lunch (where we know she had it), nor the coffee shop where we stopped an hour or so later. It just disappeared.

We decided to wait until we got home to get a replacement, and we went to AT&T and bought a replacement iPhone. The store was out of the model we wanted, so it was ordered, and we were told it would be delivered either Monday or Tuesday of this week. Of course, it didn’t work out this way, and it wasn’t delivered until Thursday. (By the way, Apple ships through UPS, and requires a signature when a phone is delivered, so it meant that each time when we were told the phone would be delivered, someone needed to be home, only to find out there had been a delay and a new estimated delivery time).

The phone came yesterday, and we took it back to AT&T, who had told us that they would help us get it set up. They started by asking Edie her iPhone password. This seems to be necessary to make the phone operative and to be able to move everything from her iCloud account to the phone. She had it written down in her password book, so this seemed easy. She gave AT&T her password, they did what they did, and they told us that this password did not work, that it must have been changed at some time. They then told us that this was an Apple problem, not an AT&T problem, and they there was nothing they could do for us, and we needed to go to an Apple Store, where they would take care of it. We were pretty unhappy, thinking that at the beginning, AT&T should have told us to go to the Apple Store, not to come back to them.

But, Okay, we went to the Apple Store in Bethesda directly from AT&T in Friendship Heights. We were met by an agent (I was surprised there was no wait – that seemed good), and told him our story. He took the phone, put in Edie’s password, and it worked fine. We don’t know why it didn’t work at AT&T, but did at Apple, but that was good…….until they told us that in order to download everything, a second verification was needed. Normally, this would work through a text to the phone number, containing a code, but when the phone has been lost, the phone number is not available. We were told that if we needed to get things reset, we had to contact someone by telephone at Apple, that they were not able to do it at the Apple Store. “Huh?”, I wanted to say, but realized it wouldn’t do any good. He offered to give us the phone number. How nice of him.

But then he asked if we had any other Apple devices. Because I detest Apple based on years of experience, my phone is an Android and both of our laptops are PCs. But we do have an Apple tablet, and I told him that (my mistake), and he told me that we didn’t have to call anyone. He pushed some buttons on Edie’s phone and said that we could get the code when we opened the tablet at home. Of course, when we got home and opened the tablet, I couldn’t find any code or anything else sent to us, and couldn’t even figure out where it could possibly be.

But I went back to Edie’s new phone and started clicking on things about how to receive the needed code, and finally got to a place where they allowed me to put in a second recovery phone number, so I put in my phone number, hoping that I had actually solved the problem.

But, no….

I then get a message on Edie’s phone that it will take them 24 to 48 hours to verify my phone number, and that there is no way to shorten the process, that there is no use calling Apple Support, that we just have to be patient.

So, we are 24 hours into that 24-48 hour period, and I have no confidence that I am going to get a code on my phone by tomorrow, but also realize that we are paralyzed and cannot do anything until the end of that period.

Meanwhile, no one can call Edie on her phone, and she can’t call anyone. If she goes anywhere by herself, she has no phone with her if anything problem arises. She has no idea what calls she has missed over  the past three weeks without a phone.

I have always felt that Apple was an evil company. Not like Facebook or X, which are morally corrupt, but just technologically evil. I understand that people who are tech minded find Apple to be the cream of the cream. But you sure can’t prove it by me.

That’s it. I don’t know if Edie will ever have a phone. If anyone can help us, I have only one message: HELP!!!

My complaints about the rest of the globe will have to wait.

Oh, yeah. The answer to the riddle: I like apples, but not Apple. You probably already figured it out.