Is it Just Me?

So, anyway, I went into Bournemouth yesterday to finally buy a Macbook, something I've been promising myself (and needed) for a while but had been holding off because of cost and doubts over PC cross-over. I was still feeling slight unease about the transition, mainly because of the hefty price (£699) and moving files over from PC (I know this is easy and everything, but have heard of some weird format conversions).

Nevertheless, after much gazing and gnashing at the figures in my bank account, I pretty much convinced myself to buy the Mac, and I let the guy in the shop do his spiel in order to wipe away any niggling doubts. All was going fine (yes Macbook Pro would be better, especially for Final Cut Pro, but whoa nelly, let's not go there yet, £13000 & the rest!). Wireless set-up, check, shouldn't be a problem. Burn CDs, watch DVDs, fine.

Then, the final hesitancy. The price tag. Quite a hefty chunk of change for me. So I asked what he could throw in for me (some sort of extra incentive) to which he practically laughed in my face. Said that was the price (I wasn't asking for a discount), and that he makes more money on the extras than he does on the computers themselves. This was all fair enough but it was his smug attitude that ruined the potential sale. I was immediately demoralised and disconcerted, and left the shop. If he had tried to reassure or empathise with me about handing over a large wedge of cash, I might have hung around. He wasn't even an official Apple store. When I went to one of those a couple of months ago, I was completely overwhelmed (& intimidated) by the staff, and the way the price tags for everything (from ipods to iphone to the computers) were just shrugged aside as if they were no problem.

Now, maybe it's a sign of my age. This is what things cost, Danny, get over them. And I am willing to stump up and buy the sodding Mac but I need to be coaxed and reassured along the way. I just get a bit overwhelmed sometimes by the consumer culture, and I seem to be about two steps behind the current spending trends, and how people can be so casual about buying stuff that can cost a lot of wonga. Oscar Wilde was on to something when he said that we know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Interestingly, he was actually describing a cynic. Is that what we are, cynical consumers? Gee, I really am getting old.