a new Apple tree in the Smokies

This morning we loaded up the pos car and headed to the mall. I’ve been in the mall a handful of times since Christmas and that was usually just to taxi Sarah and her friends. Today was a big deal. Today, Knoxville got its’ very own Apple Store. I know it sounds silly, but small town Knoxville just doesn’t get something this cool very often. Knoxville likes to think it is a big city, but it’s really just a friendly little town where you see someone you know everywhere you go. It’s a town where two strangers chatting can quickly realize that one of them knows a relative of the person they are just meeting. Just standing in the line of people excited to see the shiny new computers and jazzy looking Ipods, Sarah’s “boyfriend” and Tommy’s computer teacher walked by us. Once we entered the store which could possibly change Tommy’s feelings about the mall, our family scattered. Sarah drooled over the Ipods before going to read Xanga blogs on the Macs. Tommy stared, gap-jawed, at the size of the monitor screens. Noah was too short to play on the computers and didn’t know how to use the Ipods, so he watched Amy and the other small children sitting on beanbags, playing games. Doug didn’t say it, but he wished he could spend the day fiddling and comparing each and every machine in the store. I may have seen a tear in his eye as he watched the people leaving the store with large bags and boxes of treasure. Evan was only interested in removing all of the software from the shelves, so he and I were the first to leave. I am Mac illiterate anyway. I glanced at a computer, didn’t see Firefox and decided I’m too stupid for fancy, new computers. As we each left, we were given a t-shirt. Of course, we are just dorky enough to immediately put them on and take a picture.

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