Are you familiar with those old I’m a Mac, I’m a PC commercials? Well, I’m a Mac.
I ran a small graphic design firm in the naughties, and my designers had for years tried to convince me to transition to an all-Mac workplace. I find I’m often susceptible to terrible ideas, but this was objectively a good one, and we did it.
By 2010, I had been living in downtown West Palm Beach for several years. My loft was within walking distance of major cultural venues like the Kravis Center and the Norton Museum of Art. And I was only a block from Morton’s Steakhouse of Palm Beach, where I had become a nightly regular.
Around the same time, I had managed to snap up a couple of original hand-painted renderings of the Apple Cafe concept, the precursor to the Apple Store we know today. I was all in on Mac.
One night at Morton’s, I met Elizabeth. She sat next to me in one of the few available seats at the bar. She was in town on business, traveling with an art collection owned by Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, that was on tour at the Norton Museum of Art. It was clear she had a large expense account, and an appetite to go with it. I was intrigued.
We connected on an art level. I had visited the exhibit at the Norton and had a million questions I felt only she might have an answer to.
She asked me about my business, and how I liked the Palm Beach area.
Then a drunk man the regulars called Pepsi, on account of all the coke trapped in his mustache, asked her from full across the bar if she was a prostitute. I assure you she looked nothing like a prostitute. I did nothing. “I’m sorry,” I offered to her privately.
After a quick reboot we were talking again and having a good time.
I shared with her that I had recently acquired the Apple Cafe paintings for my budding collection. We discussed the values of similar pieces in Allen’s collection that were worth insane money.
“Sorry, I have to ask,” I said. “How much do you think mine are worth?”
She offered a clever anecdote, an inflated number (inquire if interested), and changed the subject back to the restaurant and how I came to be a regular.
I bit at the opening. “I live in one of the condos across the street. You should see it—the art.” I practically insisted.
She smiled, or never stopped—it was difficult to be sure.
“Sorry, I can’t. I have to be at the museum first thing in the morning.”
“Of course. I understand. May I get your number, and we can catch up afterwards?”
She smiled, I think, and after another quick reboot said, “I’m a PC.”