The Gravy On Top

As if we weren't thrilled with our purchase of an imac for $11.00 (see yesterday's post), God decided to throw a little extra bonus our way. While the salesman was looking through possible discounts, he asked us a question.
"Do you have a college student at home?"
Sure, we answered. Matt was in college. Why?
Because Apple was running a special for college students: buy an imac and get an itouch free.
We stared at him blankly. We had no idea what an itouch was. We're so out of of the loop sometimes! But hey, who doesn't love something free? So we tucked the offer into the back of our minds as we continued to negotiate. It would never have been the clincher to the sale. As a matter of fact, we actually forgot about it until we had already agreed to purchase the imac. Then the enthusiastic salesman (you could tell he loved his job) said, "And don't forget, you get a free itouch!"
The poor guy managed to keep a straight face while we asked, "What's an itouch?"
"It's like an iphone," he explained. "It has everything the iphone has except the phone itself. And The camera."
What? A phone that's not a phone? What's the point? Besides, iphones only worked with AT&T. Didn't we have to sign up for a service? How much was this "free" item going to cost us?
Now, if he'd said the itouch was an ipod with all the features of the iphone, then I would have gotten the picture. I've seen the iphone commercials. They're really cool. Then he pulled out an itouch and showed it to us. I fell in love immediately. (With the itouch, not the salesman.)
Did we have to give this to Matt since he was the college student that made it possible?
No, Terry decided. Matt had an MP3 player already. And anyway, do you give a college student a Ferrari as his first car? I don't think so. So why should he have an itouch right out of the box?
Of course, Matt didn't see it that way. As soon as I pulled the itouch out, he was mesmerized. He plugged it into the imac and started setting things up. I think he would have put his own name and password on it if I hadn't stopped him.
I've been playing with the itouch for a week now, and I love it. All the things it can do! Yesterday Matt came and asked for it.
"Why?"
"I have a bunch of apps to download on it."
"Why?"
"Because they're cool apps. And they're free."
Obviously I knew he wasn't doing this just to be helpful to his mother. So I asked to see what he wanted to download. He had about fifteen applications lined up. A dozen of them were games. Sword games. Target practice games. Just the kind of thing I wouldn't be using. But if they were on the itouch, I knew who would be using it. More and more and more!
"Forget it," I said. "Why would I want all that stuff on my itouch?"
"They're cool games," Matt argued. "And you have so much space on that thing."
I pointed to the three applications that appealed to me. "You can download these three. That's it."
Matt didn't argue, but when he returned the itouch, I noticed it had five new applications. Some guys just never listen.
So for now I'm enjoying my $11.00 imac and my free itouch. And I'm keeping a close eye on it because it has a way of disappearing. Kind of like the remote.

Some things never change.

Tomorrow's post: How to tell when there's a dead body in the trunk.