living in a material world

Last week was official gadget week in our household. Instead of surprising him with a gift for his birthday, we decided that Steve should just go out and pick up the latest object of his technological desires. He is now the proud owner of an HP iPAQ rx5900 Travel Companion. This thing is a GPS, iPod, and Palm Pilot all rolled into one sleek machine. Steve is a very geeked out and happy man.

Not to be outdone, I picked up a brand new 13 inch 2.o GHz white MacBook, a wireless Mighty Mouse and the new Airport Extreme Base Station. Man, does Apple know how to do it right! As excited as I was to receive the shiny new equipment, I was totally blown away by the packaging. The smoothness of the sleek white boxes was overwhelming. Instead of tearing into the boxes like a kid on Christmas morning, I laid them out on the kitchen counter and took in the beauty of their simplicity. I caressed them as if they were made of cashmere. Slowly, I opened each box removing the layers of Styrofoam, cardboard and plastic with great care and gently laid the contents out before me. Once emptied, I replaced all of the packaging material back inside the boxes and closed them up. They now sit in a stack in the spare bedroom, looking as if they haven't been opened yet. Yes, I know it's silly, but something about these boxes is...special. How many companies actually take as much care and consideration in their packaging as they do in the product? It's like buying clothes in a high end shop, where they carefully fold the clothes and wrap them in scented tissue paper before gingerly placing them in a fine paper bag. It makes you feel like you have bought something very special. And I can assure you that in this case, I have.


And for the record I am in no way affiliated with the Apple Corporation. I'm just a huge fan.