The HIJINKS ENSUE STORE Is where you can buy stuff that I made! It supports me and my family and keeps this little operation going.
I keep trying to find a way to honestly call this a “mostly true” story, but my integrity won’t let me. It’s a completely true story. When Josh told me his one month old Macbook Air had been damaged, I was mostly curious as to why he still owned a computer that was already a month old. He’s not usually one to deal in antiques. Then I wondered if it had perhaps been cut on its own sharpness. Next I suggested he buff out the damage with toothpaste (which I hear is a thing people do). When he informed me that said damaged with an actual crack in the glass, I wanted to suggest maybe using that stripy toothpaste or some of those whitening trays. Then I figured that not ALL dental health products related to laptop screen repair. Before I could make fun of his hardship further, Apple just gave him a new Macbook Air. I assume the genius in question pulled up his purchase history, saw that it was greater than the GNP of most small island countries, immediately offered a thousand pardons for making him wait so long and poured him a glass of champagne with a hundred dollar bill floating in it.
COMMENTERS: Josh did actually crack his new Macbook Air by dropping a $250 remote control on it. What’s the dumbest way you’ve ever damaged something valuable? Any good stories about getting something replaced for free? Have at it.
Clearly someone needs to think of remote-proofing MacBooks because the glass on mine also cracked when *coughmydogcough* dropped a remote on it. I didn't get a free replacement though. I probably should have worn a push-up bra when I went to buy a new one.
I wonder if Josh wore one when he went to his replaced.
Maybe he's just prettier than I am.
As an ex fruit store employee, it was actually a vat of sausage and the adhesive agent was partially coagulated blood of Samsung employees.
I was watching a video on my macbook pro whilst smashing up an old shed outside and a chip from the wood went flying, caught underneath the 'k' key and the key flew out.
My boyfriend had a bike accident and broke the screen of his macbook pro, and they replaced the screen for free. Not as good as a whole new computer, but almost.
@deadrobot, you wasted good Samsung-employee blood that way? Think of all the crossover fruit-computer user/sparkly vampire ingenue marketing opportunities! A vial of that around your neck would get you double cred down at the mall food court! The adhesive value for girls who like sparkly vampires and fruit computers is 256 times higher for Samsung employee blood than any other blood type!
Clearly Josh flashed some of his man-cleavage, for such preferential service.
I once picked up a toaster for $1 at a thrift store. Worked for 2 years then caught on fire. Company sent me a new toaster. 😉
Trying to prove that my 1st iPod Touch' screen is un-scratchable [sic], I used a salt shaker made of porcelane. Worked just fine… As in ruining the touch screen completely…
Not technology related but my husband broke my 100 year old hand made and painted Italian turn of the century tea cup and saucer when he was mad about something (I think he burned dinner) and in his frustration threw a fork. Well somehow that fork ricocheted into a weird angle and somehow managed to smash the teacup sitting up high on a shelf.
I have accidentally spilled a glass of 30 year old rum (bottle of which cost me nearly $300) into the back of my brand new top of the line gaming machine after I accidentally put a fleshlight down too close to the edge of a shelf.
Also, +1 for working "-anal" joke in there
+1 for finding an "anal" joke where there was none.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAH*breathes*HAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHHAHAH
I took in a year old iPod touch that had lost its 'touch', I had the receipt but it was for a non-Apple store. The apple guy said, have you tried reinstalling it? Yes. He then reached under the counter and pulled out a new one and gave it to me and took the old one.
Forgot to use the little plastic washers when installing my new motherboard. It shorted out with a squeal. The store replaced it.
When I was 12, I dropped a 5 pound dumbbell on my Sega Genesis. Thank Christ my parents found a refurbishing shop. I still have the replacement. Still works too.
Not exactly along those lines but I ordered something from Walmart had it sent to the store where they lost it. THey canceled my order and refunded my credit card. I went in there and told the manager that if he personally did not find my bed frame I would go to hardware and buy a tape measure and measure every aisle in the store noting the ones that did not match the fire code and go to the fire marshall's office and oh yeah how high did you stack stuff in the back the week before Black Friday? I am sure that they would love to know that. The store manager over heard went to the manager of Site to store and said find this man's item and give him what ever he wants. It ended up being 40%off the bed frame they found in 3 minutes of looking and a 25 dollar gift card for my trouble. I love being a Fire Inspector in my county.
On the one hand, that's bordering abuse of authority.
On the other, NOTHING TO SLEEP ON.
My roommate came home from his first deployment to Iraq. He'd taken his laptop with him; it had withstood sandstorms, near-bombardment (a mortar shell hit next to his tent – fortunately, he was on CQ at the time), and being carried on a military transport. When he got home, he bought himself a new laptop, and I got his old one. Two months later, I had to get up quickly from where I was sitting – and tripped over the power cord, bringing the whole thing crashing down to the floor and destroying the screen…
Youre a more powerful destructive force than Al Queada.
My little sister, whom I nicknamed "the small tornado" for the way she blows through life with no regard for any physical objects in her path, once destroyed a phone while it was still in her pocket. She accidentally walked into the railing of a staircase and the phone was crushed between the rail and her hipbone. The LCD screen was totally shattered. Bits were oozing. Good news: This meant that *I* got a new phone when hers was replaced because our parents got the two-for-one cheapy-cheap flip phones at the Verizon store.
She then proceeded to destroy the flip phone within a year and a half by flipping it open and closed too hard and too much (she's a texting fiend) to the point that the two halves of the phone were coming apart. She tried to superglue the halves back together and, lo and behold, glue is liquid and circuitry is not friends with liquid. The Verizon guy couldn't even get the data off her sim card. But guess what? I got another new phone.
The brand new CEO of a corporation I worked for popped in one day, handed me his Palm something, and said in his smarmy British accent, "Be a good chap and charge this up for me. I'll be leaving for a flight just 'round 45 minutes from now."
Uh, I had no charger for this unauthorized abomination of a device. I jumped in my car and drove around town, stopping at every phone store I saw, PDA in hand, waving it at any and everyone. No one had a charger for it. With only minutes left, I finally found a store that had it. I ran back to my car and tossed the charger and the Palm in through the passenger window as I ran around to the driver side to haul ass. The PDA landed on the seat first. The charger landed right on the Palm's screen, smashing it to bits. I actually dropped to my knees in the parking, looked skyward, and bellowed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Out of breath and sweating bullets, I handed the wrecked device and charger to the CEO.
"Here you go, sir. Had a little accident during my scramble to find you a charger in time."
"That's quite alright, accidents do happen, don't they. Well, I'm off, cheers!"
I was fired into oblivion a few weeks later. 7 years with them, toast.
That is SUCH a sad story.
I hope the company went out of business!
They no longer exist! But they were swallowed up by something bigger and better, so it wasn't…punitive. It's cool, though. A professional reference I listed from back then and there just told my would-be employer last week that I'm pretty much THE SHIZ.
And thank you for your support! 😀
…my computer is 3 years old, and my TV was made in the 80s…
Man, I hope nothing goes wrong … RadioShack quit stocking vacuum tubes awhile ago.
Sad thing is my tube TV is still working while each and every solid state unit has given up the ghost – custom chips are even harder to find than good ole Vac Tubes – for some reason they were still making knock-offs in eastern Europe.
I laughed so hard, with great guilt but no mercy, at your alt-text. Then my wife came into the room, and I had to explain to her why I was laughing. I don't think I'm getting laid tonight.
My Dad's friend had her little white MacBook screen broken twice. Once by picking it up with her hand around it, and gripping too tightly (she is not some kind of She Hulk), and once when her girlfriend pushed it under the couch. Both times the screen bust (went all black and blobby) from the outer shell flexing inwards slightly.
My dumbest damage has got to be taking my one day old 3DS outside to use whilst watching my cat play in the garden. I picked up kitty at the end of the afternoon to take her inside. She ninja-cat-punched me in the pocket and sent my 3DS crashing down a set of concrete steps. It is cracked on every single corner, somehow. But Nintendo don't cover cosmetic damage in their repair policy.
But I bet it still worked, right? Nintendo's stuff can take a Mike Tyson-level beating and still function.
(I've dropped my DS more times than I can count, and still works like a dream)
Ironically my Mike Tyson's Punch Out cartridge isn't running so great.
Probably not helping the english stereotype, but I dropped a phone in a cup of tea, after drying out it still worked. I then got an upgrade which broke within 2 weeks due to moisture damage… it was middle of the summer and it hadnt even rained since I got it.
My grandparents had a story even more impressive than the comic, a few years ago they had a telly that shouldve been in a museum (I bought a better one on ebay for £1.50 when I moved out). Some electicians were doing some work and the telly went bang and smoke came out the back of it. They phoned up the workers boss and the next morning a brand new top of the range tv and dvd player were delievered free of charge and weren't charged for the work done.
That second story is the complete opposite of how it would've turned out here in the rebellious colonies. An American contractor would bill you for the time and effort of destroying the TV for you. Then take the rest of the day off.
To be honest that's what would normally happen here, we think the guy mightve done something dodgy and they were covering their back or they have an amazing liability insurance policy
Why do I smell a penguin sitting on top of a telly joke here?
Does dropping my car keys down an bottomless chasm count? (Okay it was a drainage grate in front of a Starbucks, but they might as well have tumbled off the Bridge of Khazad-Dum). Valuable is not the same as expensive. [vader]NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO![/vader]
A few years ago, I was riding in an elevator with my dean and immediate supervisor. The dean pulled out his building master key and his security card, and then promptly dropped them into the crack of the elevator shaft. They fell 6 floors. The facilities director later found them both in the bottom, smashed. 😀
My husband once put his work-issued laptop on top of his car (the first week!) and drove away, causing major destruction. This was the late 90's, and cost about $3000. He took it into the IT department, prepared for groveling, but they just mocked him and issued him a new one (they were insured).
I worked as a consultant for claims adjusters when it came to IT equipment and such and the top of the list after theft was "I ran over my Laptop" … got more screen-less systems as salvage that way.
It's trippy your opinions on things are almost diametrically opposed to my own. If I didn't also have a goatee would think you were mirrorverse me.
Within 2 weeks of buying my first Mac laptop, I dropped a heavy-duty surge protector on it, causing a huge dent in the casing directly over the hard-drive, both damaging the harddrive and also knocking lose a connection for the power cord/battery, so that the machine wouldn't hold a charge.
I need to mention that I dropped the surge protector on it from close to ceiling-height, and the laptop was on the floor.
I don't know I can't even.
My brother in law has a talent for destroying his phones. He's a chef and prone to talking on the phone while cooking. He has lost at least three phones in huge pots of soup or sauce. Probably the stupidest way he destroyed one was by puking on his own trousers at a party. When they got home, his wife (my sister) immediately threw them in the washing machine – (understandably) without checking the pockets…
Well, you see, I was at Boy Scout camp, and there was this portable latrine…
…
I still have that phone. I don't know why; maybe as a trophy of "it seemed like a good idea at the time."
You ate it, and retrieved it a couple days later, right?
I so hope that's how the story goes.
My boyfriend had this brand new TV-VCR combo in his res room in university, and I was sitting on the bed watching Top Gun (I admit it). I picked up the remote to turn the TV off, and it made this sad power-down noise, and would not turn back on. For the record, I was sitting at least 10 feet from the television when this happened! My boyfriend (now my husband) still has not forgiven me for the death of his TV and likes to bring it up anytime anything breaks! I DIDN'T TOUCH IT, I SWEAR!!
Also, the store replaced the TV, but the VHS copy of Top Gun was no more…