iCharge – well maybe I don't.

I am well aware that the French are known for being a lot more straightforward in their approach to strangers (and maybe the stereotype is true of some few sketchy people), but I didn’t know I could get something free from that.

For those Mac owners who know just how many products come with an i before it, you can probably relate to my need to only use Mac chargers, Mac organizers, and as soon as they start making it, an iLife. I had been looking for an apple store to buy a charger for my laptop, fit for the two-stick crazy electrical plugs that French walls come equipped with, but I didn’t need the entire charger, just the adapter that I could change on my own charger. (For you non-Mackers, the charger of most laptops has a little piece that comes off that you can change for any other Mac adapter, either a little piece, or a cable that will extend your charger).

Well, Mac doesn’t sell anything less than a 40 Euro travel kit that comes with every little plug you will ever need to use while on the terrestrial planet, and I really only needed the French one. I contented myself with using the typical 2 Euro converter that I had bought at BHV and thanked the 25-year old salesman.

As I was leaving the store, I remembered I needed an ATM and turned around to ask him if he knew where I could find one of these distributing machines, and he told me he would look in a map. I was thinking- Wow, I need to get one of these maps that have ATM’s painted on them. When he got behind the counter he passed me a cable and told me that they didn’t sell the adapters, and that he didn’t know why, and told me to take it quickly, because he could tell ‘in my eyes’ that I needed it. How corny, and life saving at the same time.

The cable he had given me didn’t have a price tag, a sensor chip, nothing. It was only wrapped around in a perfect Mac-out-of-the-box way, and so before the 40-year-old woman (who I assumed was the supervisor) came back, I thanked my guardian angel, and left. Cable included.