Pardon me while I faint. I just finished experiencing good customer service. And it was with Apple. It had to do with a difficulty downloading one of its new video versions of the TV series Lost.

My wife recently started watching the series off the TiVo, but I hadn't seen all the episodes. So I figured I'd give it a whirl, and I bought a couple of episodes from iTunes to help me catch up. They aren't the greatest quality at full screen on my laptop, but they're tolerable. And at two bucks a pop for three episodes, they're cheaper than a microbrew--and lasted longer.

However, I had not accounted for the circa-September 1940 electrical wiring in my house. Occasionally when I have the dimmer at the wrong level on my lights, it interferes with the DSL. Needless to say, I had a download of one episode interrupted when I switched on the lights. I had lost an episode of Lost.

I got the DSL working fine again and went back to iTunes. The episode was "White Rabbit," and it wasn't in my list of videos. When I went to download it again, the nice iTunes program warned me that I had already purchased it and I would be charged again if I continued.

Well, that got my dander up.

I was prepared for the protracted battle of navigating impersonal customer support Web sites, solution databases, and whatnot. Especially with the current digital rights management client, I expected asking for a redo on a piece of intellectual property involving the television industry might be met with suspicion and accusations.

I went to the Apple Web site, read the FAQ, and sent off a sharp request to be helped.

I got a confirmation e-mail immediately and an answer in my in-box the next morning. The e-mail informed me that the folks at iTunes had reset my paid content for the episode of Lost and explained how to redownload it in iTunes. I followed the instructions, and it worked well. My episode had finally arrived.

I wish could have gotten a response right away, but as it goes, it was pretty timely and complete. The Apple response also had tips on backing up my data to make sure I didn't lose it again.

Finally, about three days later I got a request for a survey to evaluate how good the service was. The funniest question on the survey was whether the tone of their response had been hip or conservative. Umm…neither, but OK. I chose conservative.

This is one of the reasons Apple grabs up market share. It doesn't always have the best products, which, in turn, aren't always the most reliable or cutting edge. But they work, and they look cool, and the company provides good service.