RADIO SHACK SUCKS

The other day, I decided to venture out to upgrade my wife's phone to the iPhone 4, since she was finally due for the reduced price upgrade. There is a Radio Shack conveniently located about 60 seconds away over in downtown Paoli, so I figured I would head over there, pick it up, and be done within 10-15 minutes. First mistake.

For starters, I walk into the store and am immediately greeted by this guy:

Seriously, I'm not joking. The manager looked exactly like Will Forte from SNL. I hate the modern version of that show, so my gut instinct immediately told me to get out of the store and make the trek out to King of Prussia to the AT&T store. Nah, I thought to myself. Just because the guy looks like Macgruber for Christ's sake, that's stupid to think of that as an indicator of future service. Note to self: Trust my gut instinct.

To begin with, they didn't have the phone in stock. No big deal, they can just get it from another store or do the shipping option, right? I figured that would be the case any way, even if I ordered direct from AT&T. I proceed to stand there for 35 minutes as Macgruber haplessly calls around to a few stores that show up on his magical computer as having one in stock. Finally, he strikes gold with the Doylestown location. And then my real troubles began.

My wife and I don't have the most luck with cell phones, so I figured it was a no-brainer to get the AppleCare warranty. Unfortunately, this particular Radio Shack was UNABLE TO SELL IT TO ME. Wtf? You advertise yourself as a freaking AT&T retailer and you aren't even to sell me the goddamn warranty for the Apple product?

Macgruber explained to me that it was a glitch in the system, so he would proceed to try and call Radio Shack Support (lol) for assistance. During this time, I became suddenly thankful that there was some meaningless bowl game on the television, so I wouldn't awkwardly have to look at the same crappy products over and over again. Of course, it also gave me time to reflect on if the real MacGyver was there, he probably would have had this figured out 25 minutes ago even with his lack of Shack knowledge. But I digress.

Long story short, after another 45 minutes of futilely trying several different methods of selling me the stupid warranty, he simply tells me that I'll just have to buy it directly from Apple. Well shit dude...if I would have known that I would have run my other two errands and been home by now. An hour and 25 minutes at Radio Shack, all to basically order a phone.

Advice? Unless you are buying something simple like an HDMI cable, avoid Radio Shack like the plague. They have no business being a provider for any cell carrier. And if the person helping you looks like one of the many completely unfunny "comedians" on SNL nowadays, run like hell.