dd411: a Very Kindle Moment

so we have all seen that pre order for the kindle fire up on dealdash..since i am fully  bitter person now, i see that and say why the heck did i just buy a regular kindle only to have it totally shown up by the new kindle? this is something that makes me nuts. i finally say ok ill get the stinking kindle and now i cant even enjoy it without cooler stuff coming out. you maybe saying "well dude you are a few  years late on the kindle...so of course there are better ones now." to that i say "i never said i wasn't a moron. i was so into my discman even while everyone moved on to ipods and stuff."

remember when it was totally ok to carry around this giant discman machine? and you were so awesome if you got the  cassette tape hook up so you could use your disc man in the car? do they even make cars with cassette players any more? can you request one?  i cant believe i am finally old enough to start the "back in my day..." and i get shocked looks.  "wait....you used to hold that giant discman in your hand when you went running? i hope you switched it from hand to hand so you didn't end up with one giant arm muscle from holding that brick.."  or "what do you mean if you went over a bump in the car your discman would skip a beat??? what is skipping a beat anyway? how did you live like that?"    

                 ok back to the kindle. so a few months ago i bought  a darn kindle and i got that insurance thing from best buy because i am notorious for dropping all electronic items constantly. yes i went through many a discman and walkman.  my dog tends to eat all my things too so i got the free replacement plan with that in mind as well. 

What's worse than forgetting a book or kindle before you get on a long flight?? i will tell you...it is being on the actual flight, getting your kindle out and finding it the screen all messed up because your 100 lb dog stepped on it.... (so i deduced)...which just happened to me. I'm on the stinking airplane and find out my Kindle is toast. I mean toast. For some reason in my head, a kindle is like an extra sturdy little machine. It doesn't seem as fragile as an i phone or or computer or tablet. To me it was like a little sheet of cement. This is not true. Don't ask me why i thought i could toss this thing around like a frisbee. Actually, maybe once i realized i had the insurance, i realized i could toss it around because it was insured. In case you were wondering, i also have the insurance on my cell phone. I tend to drop that thing like it is my job. I do the drop followed by a kick sometimes too. I need the insurance for sure.

Anyway, back to the Kindle-airplane fiasco.  So now i am stuck on a long flight with no book to read, no games to play, and thank god i had just downloaded some podcasts onto my DealDash ipod, so at least i had a little something to do.

Upon my return home, i marched right into Best Buy all confident and proud because it was busted but I was smart enough to get the insurance. You may be thinking this story is headed down the path of "didn't read the fine print and any pet-inflicted kindle injury is not covered by the insurance." But don't worry. Before i got the insurance i asked a series of pointed questions to check this out:

Me: So if my dog chews on my kindle, i get a brand new one?
Clerk: Yes
Me: So if i run over it with my car, I bring it back and I get a brand new kindle?
Clerk: Yes
Me: What if it is in a million pieces.
Clerk: As long as you bring all the pieces with you.
Me: What if i forget one of the hundred pieces that it is in?
Clerk: As long as you have the majority  you're fine.
Me: So i drop it in the toilet and it gets water-logged, I still get a brand new one?
Clerk: yes
Me: What if i take it to the beach and a tiny grain of sand gets in it and wreaks havoc?
Clerk: new one
Me: What if i decide to open the back, take it all apart and try to put it back together again and it doesn't work. Will you replace that?
clerk: yes.
Me: I think i've done my due diligence. I'll take it.

So Best Buy/Geek Squad peeps check it all out. They are like "woah how did this happen?" You must have banged the poopies out of this thing." I told them i actually didn't bang it on anything. They said it somehow had to be crushed to make the screen look the way it was looking. I said it really wasn't crushed. in fact, I let them know that i believed my dog had stepped on it while i was charging it up the night before i left. I had it charging on the floor. (i never said i was a genius). I love it when they totally don't believe you and the dude gives me this look like "oh sure, that's what happened..." like i won't tell him how it really happened. He even reassures me by saying "it doesn't matter how it happened we will replace it no matter what you did to it." Like that would give me the confidence to spill the beans about what i was actually doing with my Kindle. What did he expect me to say? Oh I was playing basketball with it and hit the rim. Oh my friend hit a killer home run with it. Oh i was jumping on it with my pogo stick. Oh i was reading high up in a tree and it fell and hit a few branches on the way down. I was lost in the desert and tried to dig for water with it. I used it for archery practice.

They weren't buying my dog story at ALL. the guys says, with this look, "so how big is your dog?" Like i must have a dog the size of a Clydesdale to ruin a Kindle like that. i say he is about 100 lbs. He gave me the look again and then we moved on. He probably couldn't believe someone would be dumb enough to leave their kindle laying in the middle of the wood floor through the night for it to get stepped on. Oh but i did.
So they say what is music to my ears...."go pick out a new kindle." Score! I head over to the Kindle section and i notice that the price on the exact same one i had is like $80 less because it was "old." I started to feel that bitterness rise up in my stomach because i overpaid. And that the new Kindle Fire was actually only $10 more than what i had paid on my old school Kindle. So with my suave negotiation skills, I paid $10 and pre-ordered the Kindle Fire as my replacement. (ok no negotiations necessary - upgrade was part of the deal).
So i have to wait a few weeks, but now i get the Kindle fire. And yes, i will be getting the insurance on my new kindle. Just in case i get a flat tire and need to use my Kindle to jack up my car.

End Story. This was a happy story. I am actually shocked that it all worked out ok. Although i am still waiting for the ball to drop...things aren't supposed to be this easy. Maybe gremlins are going to steal my new Kindle and gremlin theft won't be covered by insurance....