Martin, a self-proclaimed tech whisperer with the social grace of a hermit crab, had fixated on the Apple Vision Pro—a device that promised to turn reality into something less tedious. “$3,499,” he muttered to his cat, Chairman Meow, who was busy ignoring him. “For that price, it’d better make me breakfast and laugh at my jokes.”

The day to preorder arrived, and Martin was ready, armed with his iPhone, which he often accused of being more style than substance. “Let’s add another overpriced gadget to the family,” he sighed, navigating the Apple Store app with the enthusiasm of someone preparing for a root canal.

Face ID for a precise fit? “Sure, because my head’s the shape of a Picasso painting,” he quipped, uploading his face with the joy of a convict taking a mugshot.

Next, the vision prescription—Apple’s solution to making sure even the nearsighted could witness their bank accounts deplete in high definition. “Ah, custom optical inserts. Because my regular glasses just scream ‘peasant’,” Martin said, entering his prescription details like he was signing a treaty of surrender.

Order confirmed. “Congratulations, Martin. You’ve just traded a month's rent for a virtual toy,” he congratulated himself, his tone dripping with the pride of a parent at a mediocre school play.

As the release date loomed, Martin, driven by a cocktail of curiosity and impending buyer’s remorse, ventured to the Apple Store for a demo. “I’m here to experience the future, or at least a very expensive hallucination,” he announced to an employee who looked too young to remember dial-up internet.

The demo was a dance of absurdity. There he was, a grown man with the fashion sense of a software update, wearing a headset worth more than his car, gawking and gasping at invisible wonders. “Oh, the wonders of paying a fortune to escape reality, when a cheap bottle of wine usually does the trick,” he reflected, half-amused, half-mortified at his own extravagance.

Returning the headset, Martin’s typical cynicism was tinged with a flicker of excitement. “Well, it’s either this or start investing in relationships. And we can’t have that,” he joked, leaving the store with a swagger that said, ‘I just made a questionable financial decision, and I’m slightly okay with it.’

Chairman Meow, unfazed by his owner’s return, offered a yawn. “Yes, I know,” Martin sighed, “I could’ve bought you gourmet tuna for life. But where’s the fun in that?” With a shake of his head and a smirk, he resigned himself to his fate as a pioneer on the bleeding edge of spending too much on technology.

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