Not enough angst for you out there? Looking for something more to worry about? We know how you feel; sure, things aren't perfect with Apple right now, but the company really does seem to be in a good place, what with the iPod still stomping the competition into a watery paste and the iMac G5 poised to take back some long-awaited market share. Heck, the company's stock price is even hovering near a four-year high. Meanwhile, you've fretted all you can fret about G5 availability, the effects of Microsoft's music store, Uncle Steve's cancer scare, and whether cranking your iPod all the way up might collapse one of your lungs; you need something new to dwell upon. Well, how about the imminent failure of Apple's retail initiative?

Yeah, we know it's a bit out of style; it was much more fashionable to worry about Apple's retail prospects before it opened all these stores, turned a profit, and proved the naysayers wrong. But if you want to revisit an anxiety from the past, feel free to seize upon the thinnest of rumors currently being kicked around by ifo Apple Store: "Word is circulating in suburban Chicago that all three area stores-- Oakbrook, Woodfield, and Old Orchard-- will be closed, leaving only North Michigan Avenue as the official Apple outlet." While ifoAS can't confirm the rumor and "hopes the news is wrong," it does note that "two independent sources have reported this situation," so there might conceivably be something to it.

Needless to say, if the reports are true, then we can all kiss that four-year-high stock price so long, because we're willing to bet that any admission on Apple's part that its retail operation isn't 100% effective will lead to stock downgrades, panicked selling, and a sudden chorus of "I Told You So" from the anti-Mac pundits who sleep with one eye open in hopes of spotting a story like this. Trust us: even the closing of a single store would be like blood in the water with the sharks just waiting to pounce. (Of course sharks pounce. We've seen it. They're just like big cats, only underwater and with less fur.)

The thing is, though, if you really want to take this rumor seriously, you're going to have to expend some serious effort. Apple generally doesn't break out the performance of individual stores to the press, so first you'll have to convince yourself that the three "doomed" stores in question are doing so poorly out there in the affluent Chicago suburbs that Apple would consider the PR black eye of closing them preferable to absorbing their losses into the Big Picture. Then you'll have to ignore reports from staff at the Woodfield store itself that they're doing great and that any reports of an imminent closure are false. Last but not least, you'll need to reconcile the idea of Apple closing three of four stores in a major Mac-friendly market (there's a reason Woodfield was one of the first stores to open) with the fact that it's currently opening new stores like gangbusters, including one in Pittsburgh last weekend and at least ten more in a single day later this month.

But if you really want to worry about it, we're sure you'll find a way. Good luck!