Honesty... Honestly?

Moral dilemmas piss me off.

So after my PC a'ploded into a small smattering of fried electronics, I had to get a new computer. I ended up choosing to get an Apple (gasp!) iBook. I also ended up choosing a battery that was issued for recall, with the expectation that I would get a new one from Apple, for free, as per their battery exchange program.

Brilliant, I thought.

A free battery, I thought.

Well, I called and confirmed and haggled (as someone had already used my battery serial #) and got them to send me one. I waited a few days, and lo! There be a box for Alan! Egads, I exclaimed! I opened said box and thought, by golly, that it was a large box to hold a battery.

Inside, there was no battery. There was, instead, an envelope.

Within that envelope there was a static free plastic wrapper.

Inside that wrapper there was a MacBook logic board. Retail: $650.

So I debated. Should I sell it on eBay for $350? Should I take it to the MacStation and see what they'll give me for it? Should I buy a MacBook case and keep it? It was a brand new MacBook logic board. The box was addressed to me. It was, essentially, mine.

But was it?

A dilemma is, according to the dictionary, "a situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives." I had two choices: keep/sell the board, get money (which is needed), sell my soul. OR, call Apple, tell them what happened, see what they say.

So for a week I waited. And thought, and wondered. I waited for Apple to call and ask if I had received anything out of the ordinary. I priced out how much I could get for the logic board (anywhere from $250-600. One guy would've traded me for a mac mini, monitor, and eMac).

And today, I called Apple. I waited on the phone for 84 minutes, talked to a CSR and Product Specialist, and the only conclusion that they came to was: a) they want it back, and b) they don't know how I got it. So they're going to call me back. Whatever. We'll see where it goes from.

While I wish I would've got a couple hundred dollars out of the deal, I know that it was the "wrong thing to do". And that pisses me off.