How kind of dear Moe Lane, whose blog fu I admire and study every day, to link me today and say he ought to do it more! I rejoice at the prospect! And, in the spirit of full disclosure, covet the traffic, which I shall reciprocate to the best of my ability! (New gentle readers: I seldom use sarcasm, so please be aware, these lines come straight from my heart and are 100 percent sincere.) I also share his resolve to link more to dear Little Miss Attila and The Anchoress.
However, I have some contrary insight to add to Moe’s post about second-hand smoke being used by Apple as an excuse not to honor AppleCare warranties. Bear in mind that I have been a raving fan of Macs since my first Fat Mac (the 512K), purchased in Nov. 1984. I use both the PC and Mac operating systems now, but I love Apple and Macintosh computers with a passion that I do not feel for anything PC.
So those are my bona fides.
I see the point of poking Apple about nanny corporatism and smoking.
However, I was born to a mother who smoked and I live now in a house that she filled with cigarette smoke from December 1964 until January 2006, that is, until she fell and broke her shoulder and I told her that, as a blind person with the use of only one arm and over 100 cigarette burns on the rug in front of her spot on the sofa in the den, she had just stopped smoking. Mother died April 23, 2006.
Right after Mother’s death, I got help and scrubbed down the ceilings, walls, floors and windows throughout the house to get rid of the nicotine film on everything — including light fixtures and light bulbs. We wore kitchen gloves because nicotine is a poison and is easily absorbable transcutaneously — that particular property made it a cause of death in an episode of “The Closer” with Kyra Sedgwick.
Since then I’ve scrubbed down the walls, floor, ceiling, light fixtures and light bulbs of the family bath in our home twice and it needs a third scrubbing now because the walls are dripping with brown nicotine goo again — almost four years after the cessation of smoking in the house due to Mother’s death.
So — while I think Apple Computer should honor the AppleCare warranties of cigarette smokers whose smoking has fouled various computer parts with that sticky brown nicotine film, since their techs can make the repairs while wearing exam gloves (the kind used in healthcare settings), because nicotine is a transcutaneous poison and is only a little less efficient at gumming up computers than SuperGlue vapors, I do think Apple has solid justifications for declining to do so. It’s not a nanny state issue when they are protecting their employees.
