Gee, and here we thought that the only interesting Apple Retail openings from here on out would be the ones overseas-- you know, like the recent Ginza grand opening which had a line-up of about 80 quadrillion people before the doors opened. ("It just keeps going... and going... and going...") It's not an unreasonable conclusion to draw, since after some seventy-something store openings here in the U.S., most of the thrill of the event has long since dissipated. And we certainly haven't had any non-grand-opening retail drama the likes of the Germantown signage fiasco in donkey's years.

But sometimes new domestic stores still have a bit of drama in them, even before a lease gets signed. Take, for example, the latest buzz in Manhattan: Apple's SoHo store is a mammoth construction of glass and other shiny stuff that took years to wedge into a former post office building, and the end result is a boutique that wins architectural awards and probably employs a full-time mop guy to keep the drool from pooling on the glass steps. It's a doozy, right? A reason for Apple to be proud.

But here's where the drama comes in: apparently Apple isn't satisfied with just one. According to the New York Post, the company is in negotiations to lease the underground concourse of the GM Building-- a space almost 25% bigger than even the SoHo location and "one of the most expensive basements in the universe." Nothing's etched in stone yet, but estimates put the rent on that basement somewhere in the third-of-a-million-bucks-a-month range, so if Apple grabs it, you can be sure the company's got big, big plans. Once the lease is signed and construction is finished, the SoHo store (grand as it is) may wind up being the less-impressive of Apple's Manhattan shops-- the one you "settle for" if you happen to be in the neighborhood, poor baby.

Right now there's a viewer perched in the gaping Apple Retail vacuum of Montana choking back tears over the utter injustice of it all. Before you go doing anything crazy, buddy, we should warn you that an online petition demanding that Apple move one of its Manhattan stores to Billings probably just isn't going to fly, no matter how many signatures you get.