Apple is
The King of Prussia
A Special Report from 
Esther
9 November 2002 / Saturday - Apple's King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (PA) Store
This morning at 3:00 AM, I awoke knowing that this would be a special morning. Pennsylvania's only Apple store to date would open in about seven hours.
I lazed about until almost 4:00 doing little more wondering and waiting for the energy to get dressed and ready to go. When I got down stairs I went to work on the coffee, OJ and Carnation Instant Breakfast. It was a lot of liquid but that would be just fine. I toasted some Thomas's English muffin and slathered it with margarine and current jelly. This repast finished, I was ready to go.
Outside on the porch I awaited my lift to the Philadelphia suburb, King of Prussia. Soon the car arrived and I hopped in all excitement and anticipation. Away we whisked down the Schuylkill Expressway under the night sky with Orion overhead lighting our way. The coolness of autumn was in the air and wafted through the open window.
Soon enough we were in King of Prussia. With dawn just barely tinting the eastern horizon I approached the doors to the Plaza and tried them. I remembered reading about other openings and the crowds awaiting the anticipated moment asking myself why this set of doors was locked. It was now 5:45, a good 4 hours and 15 minutes to opening.
While I stood there another person, a woman I knew from the ML MUG (Mainline Macintosh Users Group) came up to join me and we waited together.
It was chilly and we were both cold. I had no intention of staying outside and thought that she shouldn't either. I looked around and saw a security van approaching the area and waved him down. He pulled up and lowered his window.
"May I help you ma'm?" he asked.
"Can you tell me how we can get into the mall, sir? It's
kind of chilly out here. We're here for the grand opening of the
Apple store."
"There's a service entrance on the other side of the mall.
There should be someone who can let you in, there."
I thanked him and the two of us hiked to the other side of the mall and found the door he had told me would be there. A guard was just opening it and he let us in as the sky lightened with the approaching dawn.
Down the corridor and through the doors at the end of it we went. We were in the mall. We wound our way through the empty lines of still closed shops until we reached the spot in front of the new Apple store where the lights were mostly off and the gate down. We admired the main window, which had been made to look like a snow globe with an iMac revolving in it. It had a screensaver with snowflakes dancing and swirling.
We found some seats there and sat down to wait for the opening.
Time passed and the rest of the lights came on inside the store. People came out and began to set out velvet covered ropes on stands to set limits to the crowds which would soon be filling the hall.
By now several others had joined us and the final wait was under way.
When Starbucks was open I got some coffee and a snack of cookie. Strong coffee and a sweet hit the spot.
I kept looking at my watch to determine the time. Even the seconds seemed to tick by slowly as I stood there, first in line.
Finely the gate rose and we could hear cheers rising from within as the staff went through psyching for the opening. They all came out still cheering and greeted their soon-to-be patrons with appropriate joy and cameras. There was one member with a camcorder who interviewed me.
Esther in front of Apple Store -- hmmmmmm, very retro!
More photos were taken and the group moved down the line which now stretched all the way back past an intercepting corridor, skipping that and going on up to the department store at its end.
Finally they came back and removed the rope from the front of the store and I passed over the threshold and into the Apple Store, King of Prussia. Staff members hi-fived me as I entered and there were still more photos taken.
I had such wonderful time that I didn't want to leave. (I saw iMacs, eMacs, iPods and several other items leave the store during that time.) It was time to catch the bus so out I went to the nearby bus stop and waited for my transportation to arrive.
It seemed to be a wonderful dream made more so by the fact that I slept a couple of times in transit.
[editor's notes : Thanks, Esther, for a really kewl example of true love -- at 3am I would probably still be plugging away the the puter, or sleepwalking! Oh, yes, Orion is one of my favorite winter constelations.
Incidently, since Esther said they would NOT allow her to take any pics at or even near the Mall (you know, all that homeland security crap!), one of the largest in the USA, I spent a couple hours doing a web search for the mall and discovered that:
1 - you could find maps to get there, so at least the bad guys would be able to find their way to the mall without too much trouble, whether it be by car or public transportation!
2 - there was no reference to the Apple Store on the official K of P Mall site, and it seems that several links were deleted to photos of the mall and its shops -- so the mall webmaster better start updating the web site to include at least a mention of the Apple Store -- like it has been almost a month since it opened!
3 - hey, the floor plan to the mall was on their site -- showing all the bathrooms and other neato places to stash whatever in! Stupid twits! Oh, but maybe they have video cams in the mens' rooms? Gee, that would be fun to stream live on the Internet!
4 - I was able to locate a pic of the Starbucks, above -- so
please don't blame Esther for a lack of photos -- she did take
her camera and did her best, and was way more patriotic than I
am because any pics I may have taken would have landed right here
with the story! We don't live in Iraq or some other publically traded repressive country -- or do we? huh, huh?? I guess
the very
vintage (you know, sort of like really old collector
items!) pachydumbs are doing a gig 
in DC!]
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