Sometimes the free things are so much more trouble than they are worth. We had a very lovely and very old laptop in our kitchen that died. It became very difficult to not have a computer in that room anymore. (yes, we are addicts….) So this caused the research and decision making around yet another computer purchase. We decided on the Mac mini.

We went to one of the many local Apple stores to make this purchase. When it was all rung up, it cost $500 more than it would cost online. We had to tell them we weren’t going to buy it here because we could get the same thing from the online store for $500 less. However, the trip to the Apple store made us aware of the ‘free printer with computer purchase’ deal. I hadn’t noticed that in my online shopping. Armed with this new knowledge and a much better price point, we headed home to make the purchase online.

3 weeks later everything arrived. I finally got around to filling out the rebate form for the printer. Guess what, it’s a printer/scanner and the glass is broken. I hadn’t opened the thing yet because it was a bonus, not something we needed, so it wasn’t set up yet. Well being on an early morning tear to take care of some administrative activities in the household before starting my work day, this was my task of choice.

I called Apple 20 minutes ago about getting a replacement printer, I’m still on hold. Yes, I’ve talked to someone, she keeps checking back and letting me know ‘it will be just a few more minutes’ and ‘our systems are giving us some trouble…..’. So this free printer so far has cost in my time almost as much as it was worth in the first place.

As my grandma always used to say, ‘Kid, there’s no free lunch.’ It’s still true, more true every day.