I have a two year old MacBook Pro. Recently, I happened to lose one of the plastic feet off of the bottom of the laptop. No big deal, I figured. I'm sure Apple will charge me five to ten dollars for a part that costs twenty cents, but whatever.

So I went to the local Apple Store to get one. I asked the Expert how I could get one. I pointed out that I was out of warranty and didn't have AppleCare, so I'd have to pay for it. He was kind of stumped by the question, and went to the back to ask (what I assume was) his manager. Minutes passed and the manager came out and told me that they didn't have any, and that they couldn't get any without a work order, so I'd have to call Apple Support and get them to authorize it. I was totally nonplussed by this information. I argued with them for a while that this was ridiculous, got nowhere, and basically stormed out.

<update>
Much later, I finally got around to calling Apple. I had to enter my information. When I got to the last section, I was pretty pleased:

There was actually an option there for "Rubber foot on Mac is damaged or missing", so this must be a problem that they have a stock answer for.
</update>

Then I had to wait for a callback, which was full of its own goodness. When the phone rang, I answered it "Hello?", and was greeted by a recorded prompt that told me to "Press 2 if you want to reschedule the call." I didn't, so I waited. And was told that they were sorry they had missed me and would call back in ten minutes. I guessed that the "Press 1 to continue" part had gotten cut off. Ten minutes later they called back. The first part of the message was still cut off, but I pressed 1 anyway, and got where I needed to be.

A short while later, a tech answered the line and I described my problem to him. He was also stumped, and went to ask his supervisor about it. A few minutes later, he comes back online and tells me that he has no way to sell me a foot. So I ask him, "You're telling me that there is no way for me to get a replacement foot for this computer out of warranty?" and he says that that is the case. Then he corrects himself and says that it might be possible for me to finagle one out of an Apple authorized service center, but definitely not an actual Apple Store.

So, what the hell, Apple? First you put feet on the Macbook that are held on solely by friction — no adhesive or fastener of any kind — and then you tell me that you refuse to sell me a replacement for what would likely be a 5000% markup?

At this point, I'm inclined to go steal a foot off of a display model at the Apple Store. I doubt that the feet of the new models are compatible, though.

Anyone have any thoughts as to what I can do next? Obviously, I can try to find an authorized service center, but I don't feel like I'm going to have a lot of luck with that.