I Met Vice President Al Gore at the Apple Store

This is a repost from a while ago because I felt the need to produce factual documentation to prove to a few people in my little town that I did indeed meet Al Gore and I told the truth! Plus, this is one of tugboat man’s favorite posts.

Hey, that rhymes, doesn’t it? Al Gore at the Apple Store

Of all the days to run out of the house dressed in ratty Lululemons — constructed from the WORST fabric in the entire world. They’re a powerful magnet for all the lint and dust in Southern California and seem to attract more grime than my vacuum.

I stopped wearing them as workout garments ‘cos they’re not very comfortable and they have a nasty X-rated propensity to outline my reproductive parts for everyone at the gym. NOT a flattering look. At least they weren’t the see-though kind. Click here to read my post about THAT.

Now that you know more TMI that you probably needed to — picture me in those Lululemons and an oversized “I Hiked Angel’s Landing at Zion National Park” t-shirt with a black hoodie wrapped around my waist. Oh, and my hair was tied up in a scrunchie — yes, you heard me. A SCRUNCHIE. Shhh. Don’t. Don’t say anything. I’ve heard it all before, “Ring, ring…1983 is calling.” Heard it a zillion times. In my defense, I have longish, very curly hair and a scrunchie is the best method to tie up my hair, OK?

I had MacAirApple a 1:00 p.m. appointment at the Genius Bar of my local Apple Store in La Costa at the Forum because my MacAir was on life support with the dreaded black screen of death — basically flatlining — and it needed a major resuscitation. And in case you’re wondering (and marveling) at my handiwork, I most certainly lovingly applied each and every sparkle to the darling apple with my own little fingers.

Keep reading; this story really is going somewhere, albeit in a meandering kind of way. Stick with me, OK?

Did I mention that I didn’t have on any makeup? I was in a rush to get there because how can you live without a computer — a rhetorical question, ‘cos of course it’s impossible.

I checked in with one of the many blue-shirted Apple employees and was directed to take a seat at the Genius Bar to await my personal technician. There were several available stools and I chose the second one from the end. THIS WILL BE VERY IMPORTANT SOON.

Note how close together the stools are.

I settled in and took my Mac out of its totes adorbs Hello Kitty case (I hear you snickering and I don’t care. I’m proudly 13 going on 60).

My tech, Clinton, came out for a moment to discuss my issues — well, not MY issues exactly, I mean, my MacAir haha — and whisked my laptop off to the mysterious Back Room with the invisible silver doors.

Leaning against the sharp-edged corner of the Genius Bar with the ubiquitous badge around her neck defining her status as “Manager”, I overheard her whisper to another employee, “I’m saving this seat”.

She placed her iPad down on the round stool to emphasize her statement.

“Saving it for whom?” I thought to myself. Is this like junior high where we saved seats for our BFFs? Was that the best seat? Should I have demanded to sit there? Is there anyone more important than Princess Rosebud? All these questions were swirling around in my brain.

A couple of other employees gathered around the manager and exuded nervous anticipation. “He’ll be here soon”.

My radar began to pick up on the buzz. Hmm. Who were they saving a seat for? A celebrity? An Apple bigwig? A VERY IMPORTANT PERSON?

I sniffed the air. I smelled a story. One of my former incarnations was as an investigative reporter wannabe and my curiosity was aroused.

Something was going on.

A man and a woman were ceremoniously escorted to THE SAVED SEAT.

The man sat down next to me.

His stool was so close to my stool that I could feel body heat emanating from his softly worn jeans-clad thigh.

The woman stood next to him at the end of the Genius Bar. They were both casually dressed, nothing too remarkable about jewelry — no huge diamonds or Rolex watches — just a couple of regular people.

They both shook hands with the manager. She thanked them for coming into the store. WTF was THAT all about? This was certainly different than my experience. Not that I wasn’t treated courteously, but this was a bit overly polite and way more attentive.

Now there were three employees plus the hovering manager. The woman took her iPhone out of her handbag and handed it to the manager. I noted (with my laser focused investigative powers) that her phone was encased in a J.Crew leopard print cell phone cover. Nice, but not Chanel or anything. I could see that because another employee appeared from the mysterious back room and snapped off the case, enabling me to sneak a peek of “J.Crew” printed on the inside.

Too much detail? I’m building up to the good part. Don’t leave me now!

The man was doing a lot of talking and I was only half paying attention to WHAT he was saying because I was trying to place the voice. It was a very distinctive voice, something that I KNOW I’ve heard before — a bit of an elegant and classy Southern kind of drawl, a deeply resonant sound that I found to be VERY SEXY.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out who it was. I ran through all the names and faces of celebrities in my head – nope, nope, nope.

At this point, I was openly staring at him. He has beautiful eyes. I think they were blue, but I’m not sure even though, I swear, I was inches away. Poor guy, he prolly thought he had a stalker next to him. He could prolly smell my bad breath as I thought to myself, did I even brush my teeth that day? and surreptitiously opened my handbag and slipped a cinnamon Altoids between my lips.

I totally blanked (senior moment, perhaps?) and decided it must be someone who worked at Apple, maybe someone from San Francisco or something. Whatev. No biggie. I looked around. No one else seemed to be staring in our direction, no one was taking pics or coming up for an autograph.

Except for the voice. I KNEW that voice. Was it driving me crazy? You bet it was. I told you how close we were. I could have reached out and caressed his unshaven cheek and stroked his dark blonde/silvery hair. Nice hair.

Do you wonder who it was? Can you guess?

Finally, my tech came back with the good news/bad news that my laptop needed to be purged and the OS reinstalled and all would be better, but it would take a few days. Best news of all, the repair was free.

Mostly though, I wasn’t paying attention to anything he said ‘cos I was going nuts trying to figure out who was practically sitting in my lap, but I gathered up my stuff and prepared to walk away, still puzzled.

I hopped off the stool, turned, and walked a few steps away. I really did.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Another Apple employee walked up to me, laughing. She said I should see the look on my face. Huh? Oh, I guess I looked perplexed.

She said, “Don’t you know who that is?”

I replied, “I know the voice, but my brain won’t come up with the name to match it.”

She whispered, “Al Gore.”

Damn. OF COURSE. Stupid me.

AL GORE. Vice President and almost President but for a few hanging chads; Nobel Prize winner, author, and filmmaker.

What would you have done? Kept walking out the door? Missed an opportunity?

Not THIS girl. No way.

I turned and walked back to the stool where AL GORE and his girlfriend were still chatting with the manager.

I interrupted their conversation as I stuck out my hand to shake his, and told him I couldn’t believe I was sitting there all that time and I hadn’t said anything and it must have been because I didn’t think I was seeing correctly and that he was who he was (brilliant conversationalist, right?) because I just had laser surgery to repair a torn retina and he was like (I said “like” a LOT). Don’t you like like how speedily I turned the conversation to my favorite subject, ALL ABOUT ME?)

His GF was really nice and asked me all sorts of questions about the surgery and seemed to know quite a bit about it, and then we were talking about how I had to go through that pain all by myself ‘cos my tugboat captain husband who was a PROUD AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINER was out to sea. Finally, we talked about my broken computer, and Al (see how I call him Al now that we’re besties?) asked me if I was being treated right at the Apple Store and duh of course I said yes, but secretly I was thinking to myself, “not half as good as you were treated”, and there wasn’t much else to say after that, so we shook hands again. My parting words were something stupid like, “I hope you’re enjoying my little town of Carlsbad”.

So lame.

And so lame that I didn’t snap an Al Gore-Princess Rosebud selfie, but I thought it wasn’t appropriate — so alas, no photo.

But I swear it’s true.

He’s lost a lot of weight and I think that’s why I had a hard time identifying his voice.

Wow. Now I’m thinking if I had actually touched him, the Secret Service would have had me down on the floor and I’d be writing this from a federal prison OR you’d never hear from me again.

Did I ask him about climate change? Nope. Did I thank him for inventing the internet? Nope. Did I mention that my Yale professor son would really like a tenure-track position at Stanford and could he help make that happen? Nope. Did I mention that I voted for him (which I had)? Nope. I talked about ME. ME. ME. ME.

Me in my ratty camel-toed Lululemons with zero makeup and my hair in a curly scrunchie ponytail. Good one, Princess. Good one.

Yes, I met Al Gore, also famous or infamous for that kiss to his then wife, Tipper, at the 2000 Democratic Convention.

Whatever anyone might think of his politics and/or personal life, I can verify that he is VERY SEXY up close and that’s really all I cared about at that moment. And he smells good, too! Yum.

His girlfriend is Liz Keadle and in an interesting it’s-a-small-world-six-degrees kind of thing, Liz Keadle was formerly married to Lyle Turner, founder of Invitrogen, a huge biotech company in Carlsbad, famous for their vertical integration. My son used to intern at Invitrogen (when he went to UCSD and initially majored in Molecular Biology) and met Lyle Turner on several occasions.

Crazy random connection right?

P.S. I learned my lesson. When I went back to pick up my now functioning MacAir, I wore white skinny jeans and a tunic top with just a hint of cleavage and four-inch wedges. Makeup perfect, hair blown straight. Didn’t see anyone at all. I was in and out of the Apple Store in less than five minutes. A total waste of time.

*Sighs*

Let me introduce my new best friends, Liz Keadle and Al Gore.