I went to The Apple Store Shadyside today with a friend who is considering purchasing her first iPod.

We walked in the door and she said “Look at all the people!” It was mobbed. Right away someone asked if they could help, and I said “She’s thinking about buying an iPod.”

An iPod Specialist came over and gave her the whole song and dance (which eventually led to about $100 worth of accessories and an introduction to the Apple TV).

While we were there someone bought a Mac, and as she left, all of the employees applauded.

My friend turned to me with some kind of mixture of surprise and eye-rolling.

“It’’s like a cult,” she said, at least partly because she knew it would make me chafe.

“More like a family,” I replied, which only succeeded in causing more eye-rolling.

I went there to buy Lego Star Wars for the Mac. (For my son, of course.) I also bought a game controller. There was no info as to whether or not the game would work with the controller. “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t” was as much as they could tell me.

Oh, yeah, and they also told me once I opened the game, I couldn’t return it.

I bought it, but before I opened it I found a demo of the game online, downloaded it, and couldn’t find any way to make the controller work. I also found a Macworld review of Lego Star Wars II which mentioned that the second game worked with a game controller (implying, at least to me, that the first one did not).

So I planned to return it and buy the 2nd one instead. (For my son, of course.)

But it was around 6 p.m. and parking around the store is awful ($3.50/hr at the garage, and there are never any spots on the street) so we decided to go after dinner.

We had a lovely dinner, but it took awhile to find where we wanted to go (that’s a whole other story), get a table, etc. We left around 8:45 p.m. I checked the GPS and it said we could be at the Apple Store at 9:02.

I called and explained what had happened, and they said that they’d wait since I was “almost there.” Well, of course the GPS can’t factor in red lights, a sudden rainstorm, and construction, so we finally got there around 9:07. There was someone inside the store looking out, waiting for me, the rain was pouring down, and my friend offered to run in and get it for me so we wouldn’t have to park.

She came out a few minutes later with a huge smile on her face.

“I told them I wasn’t going to buy it unless they clapped for me,” she said, looking every bit like a giddy teenager, “…. AND THEY DID!”

I laughed and told her she got about a $1,000 discount on the Apple Store Employee Applause.

“Felt kinda good,” she admitted as we drove off.

“Welcome to the family” I said only to myself.