Random Thoughts From A Video Store Clerk, Part 3

Click here for Part 1.

Click here for Part 2.

Part 3: Everything is Broken

None of the DVDs are working today.

I’ve only been working for thirty minutes and I’ve already had two DVDs returned and a call from a customer complaining that a movie she just rented won’t play.

While this is a common problem for the Gallery, it’s really not our fault. Customers don’t tend to take very good care of our DVDs and, as a result, they tend to come back worse for the wear. I’m talking about all scratched up and smudged with oily fingerprints. However, contrary to popular belief, DVDs don’t have to be scratched up to have trouble playing. Sometimes, it is the customer’s DVD player that is to blame for a film not playing properly. For example, I primarily use two different DVD players: my brother’s Xbox 360 and my Samsung HT-SK5. While my Samsung player can barely play anything anymore (including brand new DVDs), the Xbox 360 does not have trouble playing anything. Customers don’t understand this concept unfortunately and, because of this, they tend to blame us for all of their DVD troubles.

One of the women that bring back a DVD that is not working right turns out to be the mother of one of my friends at college. However, I don’t realize this fact until after she has left the store when I see my friend’s name listed in her information. I wish I had realized it a little sooner… perhaps she would have been a little less harsh on me. It wasn’t too bad though. I gave her a credit on her account and all was made well.

A few minutes later I get another DVD back from a male customer complaining that it isn’t working as well. He says that it just freezes up and skips around to various places in the film. I take the DVD out of its case and give the backside of it a good look. I can see why it’s having trouble: it has what appears to be semen stains on it. Now, this is not something many people will admit to you. In fact, I’ve never even talked to my co-workers about it. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen dried semen on the back of a DVD. I’m not sure who gets pleasure in touching a DVD after… well, you know, but people do it. Sometimes, they do it right onto the disc. Now, first, let me assure you, this is a very rare thing for us… but it does happen.

I put the thing back in its case and begin the process to send it back to the manufacturer for replacement. There’s no way I’m putting this thing back on the wall. In the back of my head, I’m mourning for this poor guy’s DVD player. Nothing’s going to be wrong with it of course but just the fact that this was inside of it makes me nauseous. My OCD begins to kick in and I feel the urge to start cleaning. I feel the ants on my legs…

It’s times like this when I’m thankful that we don’t sell adult films at my Gallery. There are some Movie Galleries that have an adult film section… hell, apparently some of them even have tanning beds (something that still doesn’t even remotely make sense to me). I feel sorry for them. I’ve read all about what it’s like to work in an adult film store. You get movies back covered in semen every hour of the day. Sometimes, you can catch people masturbating in the adult film section. You get to experience people undergoing serious porn addictions every day. You get there at 9 am to find guys shaking, waiting to get in to rent porn as quickly as possible.

No, that’s not for me. I couldn’t do it. It’s little reminders like this that reinforce that. If you’re reading this, don’t get too paranoid. Just check the back of your DVD before putting it in your player. That’s something I do everything regardless of whether I rented the movie or I just bought it. It’s not that hard to do. And like I said, it’s rare.

As the time starts to go by, I start to get hungry. I pull my little brown bag dinner out from its hiding place in the counter and put it before me. I look around. There are one or two other people in the store. I look out into the parking lot. It appears to be empty. I begin to open the bag, pulling out my tin foil wrapped Coke and my plastic bag containing a ham and cheese sandwich. I ask my co-worker if she wouldn’t mind covering for me for five minutes so I can quickly stuff my food down my throat. She’s still taking those damn modules. She’s in mid complaint with one of them when she says, “Oh yes, that’s fine.”

If there’s one thing that I actually hate about working at Movie Gallery, it’s that we don’t officially get a lunch or dinner break. Usually, we just eat behind the counter in front of all the customers. I hate eating in front of the customers. They always watch you intently as you do so. As they do, I always have the feeling like they’re secretly judging me, like I’m lazy for stuffing a sandwich in my mouth. I’m hungry damn it. I have to have food so I can have the energy and focus to serve you. Stop looking at me. Every time I bite down, I’m paranoid about a piece of food making it’s way out of my mouth and staying on my lip for the whole store to see. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a meal behind that counter. I usually just stuff it down as quickly as I can.

What’s worse is when you don’t have a co-worker with you. Then, in the middle of your meal, you have to put your food down and serve a customer with your mouth still full and your throat dry. Then, when the store is clear, you have to quickly run to the back and wash your hands so you can pick your food up again. At least, that’s what I have to do.

My co-worker’s covering for me but, to my dismay, the store’s starting to crowd up. I get as far away from the counter as possible, even turning my back to it as I cram the food into my mouth. Don’t turn around, my mind tells me. Don’t you dare turn around. I’ve got one bite left of my sandwich when I glance back at the counter to see my co-worker dealing with a line of customers. One of these customers makes eye contact with me and begins to walk towards the register on my side of the counter.

Son of a bitch…

With my mouth still full, I rub my hands briskly together and walk up to the register. Through the sludge of sandwich in my mouth, I ask him how’s it going. I then serve three more customers.

After the little rush has ended in the store, I ask my co-worker if it would be cool if I could just go into the back office to finish my dinner. I promise it won’t be more than five minutes. She says that it would be just fine. Carefully using the plastic bag to pick it up, I put the last of my sandwich in my mouth as I head to the back office.

After a trip to the bathroom to wash my hands and experiencing the dismay of being out of hand towels, I make my way into the back office. I don’t really like the back office. It’s filled with empty display cases and just feels… lonely. I make sure to eat over the tiny trashcan and not the desk where we make our deposition at the end of the night. I want to keep this place as clean as possible. Despite the fact that I’m away from the prying eyes of customers, I still feel the pressure to rush through my food. In my mind’s eye, I see my poor co-worker being swamped in an unexpected rush of customers. I inhale a bag of Doritos, a Little Debbie snake cake that I don’t need, and even my signature bag of Fruit Snacks. I then down my Coke and bring all my trash to the front of the store to throw away. There’s no evidence that I was even back there.

I throw my trash away at the front of the store. My co-worker says there hasn’t been a customer since I left. Of course there hasn’t been… My stomach feels awful as all the food and beverage I have shot down my throat all hits it at the same time. I feel nasty indigestion and acid bubbling in my throat. I don’t feel all that great… but at least I got my dinner out of the way. At least I’ll be able to serve my customers without thinking about food.

God, I hate eating at work.

We’re having some interesting customers tonight. The first one is this big black guy who comes in around seven. A few hours prior to that, he called and asked me to save him a copy of Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. When he comes in, he immediately holds up both of his arms in a fashion that would say that he just won an event of some kind. It’s like he’s celebrating just existing. 

Yeah, this guy’s a superstar.

Immediately, he comes up to the counter and asks for his movie. I begin to ring him up. As I do so, he begins to tell my co-worker and me about how he’s excited because he gets to go home early due to the power going out at the gym he works out.

“Can you believe that these crazy motherf*ckers were still working out with the f*cking lights out? F*ck me, man. I had to tell those crazy f*cks to get off the f*cking treadmills and go motherf*cking home,” he tells us.

There’s a customer with a child behind him. I’m laughing. My co-worker isn’t really sure what to do. This guy drops the f-bomb and other curses every two-seconds and does so loudly. Yeah, this guy’s a superstar. After awhile, he starts to look through the comics we have at the front. He looks at the newest Batman comic and says it isn’t worth a shit. Yeah, this guy even knows his Batman. Did I mention that he was huge? He looked like he could crush my head without much strain from one of his arm muscles. He’s big, black, bald, and cursing like a sailor. I don’t know why, but at this part of the night, he makes me really happy. On his way out of the store, he raises his arms in a victory salute to himself again. Like I said, he’s a superstar.

I turn to my co-worker after he leaves and say, “that was an interesting guy.” She only nods her head, turning back to the modules. I write down the words “awesome customer” on a sticky pad to remind myself of him later. Deep down, I know that I don’t need the reminder. During all of this, I forget about the ants and stacking the wall.

My next interesting customer comes in the form of a girl named Christa.

Right now in my life, I’m basically off of women. No, I’m not gay or anything like that. I’m just keeping my focus on other things. I want to achieve a complete sense of focus on my work. I want to devote myself completely to my filmmaking, screenwriting, and creative writing in general. I want to learn as much as possible. When I got out of school a month ago, I immediately began training and testing my mind. I spent all of the day either reading a book, writing an article for YDKS, or doing creative writing. I don’t want any distractions. All women have done for me is cause pain and waste my time. Besides, I always fall in love with the wrong one anyways. It’s just a waste of time, energy, and the thought process. No, I want complete focus- no women, no alcohol, no drugs. I need to focus. I want to focus. You may say that I’m just dooming myself to a life full of pain and loneliness. To that, I say that that’s where most of my creativity comes from in the first place.

Of course this all goes right out the door once one just shows me a little bit of attention. After all, I can’t just eliminate all my feelings. I don’t want to deal with it but it’s still there. I just do my best to ignore it. Hell, I’m pretty much in love with a girl right now. You know what? It’s a mistake. It always is. Every now and then, I’ll find myself wishing that she’d some how be the next customer to walk through the door. Then, I curse myself. I tell myself to focus. I tell myself to put up the movies. In the end, she just ends up making me feel like shit just like the others. Every time I think of her, it’s like a having coal burning inside my stomach. I tell myself that I hate her and that I’m off again. Then I find myself thinking about her again. Then, I go and put some more movies up, get off work, and write for YDKS late into the night.

Despite my need for an asexual lifestyle and my off-and-on again feelings for a certain someone, all it takes is just a little attention from a relatively attractive woman to get my mind to immediately imagine a future with her. A customer named Christa was one of those women. Honestly, I can’t even remember what she even looked like. I remember her being somewhat attractive but, for the life of me, I can’t get a perfect picture of her in my head. This is something that always happens to me when I meet girls that I’m attracted to. They literally cause a memory block in my mind. It just makes me think about them more often, struggling to put a mental image of them together in my mind. This just causes more of a waste of my thought process.

Apparently Christa was a regular. She knew my co-worker pretty well and they chatted it up for a little bit. However, when she was ready to check out, she came to me. She didn’t have anything in her hands and she told me that she needed to pay off a late fee. As I rang up her account on my computer, I saw that she owned 23-dollars to the store. I began to go into my whole spiel on how I’m going to sell her a Discount Rental Card to save her a few bucks. I start to go into how it works when I notice a strange look on her face. Suddenly, I feel like an idiot. Obviously, she has established herself as a regular and, due to that, she probably has heard this a million times.

“I’m guessing you know all this already?” I ask.

Yep. I give a little fake laugh and reply, “Well good, that makes my job easier.” She laughs too. Then, she starts to ask me about myself. She asks where I go to college. She asks if I’m off the next day. She’s witty and sarcastic in her replies and the way she delivers her questions. She’s not really flirty… just energetic and interested. She shows interest and emotion. God, what’s wrong with me? Is that really all it takes anymore? Just a little bit of attention? Eye contact. I make eye contact. She smiles. I smile.

She’s got warmth going through my stomach. For a brief moment, I remember why I love women so much and just the idea of a woman. Just the idea of love and being loved. The idea of someone being interested in you and what you have to say. I’m thinking about this, the warmth inside of me, and all is going so wonderful when she looks up at the TV monitor above my head. It’s showing a promo for Larry the Cable Guy’s latest shitfest entitled Witless Protection. I have the promo memorized by now. It plays every ten minutes. She gasps and asks if we have a copy of that in. My stomach drops. The warm feeling I had in my gut is long gone, replaced with that burning indigestion from inhaling my dinner earlier that evening. Slowly and gravely, I point to the wall to my right.

“It’s in the W’s…” I reply.

She gets her copy. In my head, I’m trying to weigh things out. Am I going to sell out my movie taste for this woman? What am I even thinking that for, she’s just a customer! We just met! She’s just been sarcastic to me… that’s all. She’s just been friendly and already I’m trying to imagine a future and babies and all that crap. Babies? I hate kids. What am I thinking?

I finish her transaction. I tell her I’ll give her the receipt and her movie on the other side of the counter. I say this to every customer that graces me with his or her presence. I move to the other side, tearing the receipt out of the printer as she makes her way over. I have my pen ready. I give it to her.

“You going to tell me what to do?” she asks sarcastically, a glimmer in her eye. I just manage a smile.

I slide that unforgivable choice of film on the counter next to the receipt. She starts to sign her name.

“You know, I tend to be too sarcastic sometimes. I’m not trying to give you a hard time or anything. I know it can get annoying…” she says as she signs.

“No… I like it… it’s nice… for a change…” I say quietly.

She looks up and smiles, taking that black hole of cinema from the counter top.

“I look forward to seeing you around, Wesley. What’s my name?”

“Christa.”

“That’s right. Better remember it.”

I just smile and say goodbye. Then, she’s out the door.

She hasn’t been back in the store when I’ve worked since, but every day since then I’ve waited for her to walk back through that door. I know it’s nothing. I know nothing is going to come of it. But, I can’t help but want to see her walk through that door. I want her attention again. I want the sarcasm. I want the smile. Then, I remember that I need to focus. I remember my new asexual stance on things. I remember the other girl that I’m in love with. Plus, I remember her unforgivably shitty taste in movies. After all, that’s the most important factor here.

I go to put up some more movies on the wall.

Anther customer brings back a DVD that won’t play right. Everything is broken today.

Stay tuned for Part 4... I swear it's the last one. I just had a lot to say...