Warning: dealing with customers may cause bodily injury, or possibly death. Please use extreme caution!
Yippee! I updated the page!!!!
Last updated: 1/20/05
12/31/95 -- After a drunk woman cussed me out for not noticing her in her bright red coat (?), she threw quarters, dimes, and nickles at my co-worker, Dick, and then ordered him to pick them up. 5/13/96 -- I rented videos to Lynn Russell from Headline News. Cool. 7/23/97 -- A baby puked on my register. 9/13/97 -- This man came in and asked one of the employees to help him find some movies that he was looking for. So she did, and she was as nice as she could be to him because she thought that maybe he was a secret shopper. (Blockbuster sends people in every once in a while to pretend that they are customers, and then they grade us on our customer service.) She took him around the store, showed him all the new movies, pointed out some movies that she thought he would like. It worked. He took some of her suggestions. But, little did she know that later he would shove about 7 of those tapes down his pants and run out the door. It wasn't real easy for him to run either with all those movies in his jeans. He was caught a few weeks later at another Blockbuster doing the same thing. 10/30/97 -- This guy came in who had just been to a costume party dressed EXACTLY like Austin Powers. I mean EXACTLY. The shoes, the fake teeth, the lacy collar, everything. Ralph told him that he would take off his late fee if he would do an impression for him. The guy said, "Do I make you horny?" Ralph took off the late fees. I guess he made Ralph horny. 1/16/98 -- I went into the customer restroom to find on the floor what looked like half of a partially chewed up hot dog. I hope that was a hot dog, and not something else. I don't think that Lorena Bobbitt has visited the Atlanta area recently. 1/30/98 -- There is this ANNOYING French couple that comes in all the time. They come in with their ANNOYING little French kids. They never want to pay their late fees, so they ANNOY me at the counter by trying to tell me that their stuff wasn't late. Did I mention that they're ANNOYING? If one of them comes in, they always have to use our phone and call the other one to make sure they got the right movies. And then, when I tell them that they have a late fee, they have to call the other one and tell them so that we can talk to them on the phone and they can yell at us telling us that it wasn't late and to credit off their $28.46 late fee. I hate them. Anyway, the ANNOYING French man came in tonight and looked a little freaked out. He said, "I think you need to call the police. I was just over at the Circle K across the street, and there were some suspicious looking men in there. I got out of there as fast as I could. I think something really bad just happened. You need to call!" Then he ran out the door and hopped in his mini-van where his wife and kids were waiting. So, Jeff called the Circle K. A woman answered. Jeff said, "I know this is going to sound weird, but I'm calling from Blockbuster across the street, and a customer came in and said that you were about to get robbed." The woman said, "What? Everything is fine." Jeff said, "Well, he said that there were some strange people in there, and he thought that something suspicious was going on." She replied, "The only strange person that was in here tonight was this guy that piled all this stuff on the counter, and then he didn't have enough money, and then he had to go outside and talk to his wife, and then he came back in and told me I had to void everything off. What a freak." Jeff said, "Did he have a French accent?" She said, "Yeah, how did you know?" I got a good laugh from that one. They appearently harass other people besides us. Freak. 2/3/98 -- A woman came in and rented the Nintendo 64 game "Yoshi's Story." She came back the next day and demanded her money back saying that "there was a profanity that appeared on the screen in between levels" and that she didn't think that it was appropriate for her son to view such a word. She said that the word "asshole" popped up on the screen. We played the game, and we didn't see anything. She's smoking crack. 2/23/98 -- A somewhat regular customer came in today. He told me that his children asked him if I was his friend. They said that I was nice. He said that he told them that I was an "angry young woman with a reputation for evil." He's a weird guy anyway, so I never listen to him. His kids will probably be scared to death of me now. Oh, well. 2/28/98 -- For some reason, a few customers feel the need to bring their pets into the store. It's not like Sparky is going to be able to help you pick out a movie. We get cats, dogs, snakes, iguanas, ferrets, birds, you name it. There is this woman that always brings her dog into the store. It's a little pug dog that looks just like the dog from Milo and Otis. I think she brings it in to get attention because everyone will say, "Aww, what a cute dog!" Anyway, when the dog gets excited, it pees on the floor. So, everytime she brings it in, someone freaks out and says that it's cute and wants to pet it, and IT PEES ON THE FLOOR!!! So, the first time she brought it in, it peed on the floor, but she cleaned it up. The second time she came in, it peed on the floor, but she cleaned it up. The third time she came in, it peed on the floor, but she cleaned it up. Are you noticing a trend here? About the fifth or sixth time she brought the stupid dog in, an employee told her that she can't keep bringing the dog in if it's going to pee everywhere. We aren't supposed to let dogs in there in the first place. Did she listen? No. She came in again, and like always, the dog peed on the floor, but she cleaned it up. But this time, and few minutes later, that dog crapped on the floor. She says to the dog in her cutesy voice, "What a bad pug. Yes you are, yes you are!" But she did clean it up. I think that up until this point, we were more than cooperative with this woman. We should have thrown the dog out a long time ago. This is where we had enough. There was a cart in the back of the store that had stuffed animals on it. There was a little bean bag dog (like a beanie baby) on it for sale. That demon dog grabbed the toy off the shelf and chewed on it. My co-worker Jeff saw the dog doing this, and saw the woman take the toy from the dog's mouth and put it back on the shelf, and walked away. Jeff doesn't take any crap, so he picked up the toy, which was soaked through with dog slobber, had an eye missing, had stuffing and beans coming out of it, etc... and brought it to the woman. He said, and as polite as he possibly could, "I was just wondering if you were going to leave this here." She was shocked that Jeff would do such a thing. She was shocked that he was going to make her pay for it and demanded the Blockbuster 1-800 number from him so that she could complain and get him fired. People amaze me. 3/6/98 -- This weird man came in and gave a letter to Jean to give to me, and then left. This is how the letter read...and I'm warning you: it's weird.
Hello,
I wish I could tell you this in person, but
this is where you work and I must respect that.
I wouldn't want to cause any problems or make you
feel uncomfortable here.
The first time we talked I wasn't trying to hit
on you but as you were trying to help me find that
movie, I began to remember seeing you in here a long
time ago. I remembered how nice you were. I also
remember seeing you outside one day, at the corner
of the building. You were talking to some other
Blockbuster people, maybe getting ready to work or
on a break.
Ever since that night when you were helping me
look for that movie, I find myself thinking of you
almost all the time. Thinking how that there is
something so very special and attractive about you,
many times as I go to sleep or when I wake up.
Believe me when I say that I'm old enough to be
your father. I'll be forty nine soon. I'm losing my
hair and now I even have false teeth. This isn't cool
to say but I have to be honest with myself. I've
gotten angry at myself because I keep forgetting that.
What I just wrote should make me stop writing
this letter. Feelings are strong things, not easily
changed.
I keep trying to see if you're wearing an engagement
ring or wedding band. Even if you are I will not stop
caring for you.
Please don't be upset about this letter. I
wouldn't ever want to cause you any problems.
You are so attractive, intelligent, sensitive
but strong.
I try to be a good man but you are more than I.
Writing this letter is not like telling you this
in person, but I feel it must be said. The last time
I was in the store, I looked at you and thought that
there is no other woman in the world I would want to
look at or be with more than you. You're that fine
a woman.
I can be very shy sometimes. It has its good
and bad sides. If I looked angry please forgive me.
Sometimes I look that way when I'm confused or not
knowing what to do or say.
Don't feel like you have to respond to this.
You don't have to. I wanted you to know how much I
care and think of you.
Love,
John
6/30/98 -- Another freak customer invited me to their church today. They're always doing that. And it's always people from the Atlanta Church of Christ. They suck. Don't push your stupid religion on me. God! 7/2/98 -- The store was broken into last night. Jeff came in to work this morning and noticed that there was glass on the floor because someone broke a side window. Whoever came in only stole CDs. We don't even have that many CDs for sale. They broke into a video store to steal CDs!?!? They could have just gone up the street to the Blockbuster Music! And, get this -- among the CDs they stole: John Tesh and Kenny G. Not only is the guy a crook, but he has bad taste too. 7/9/98 -- While straightening the New Release wall, I found a Trojan condom wrapper on the shelf next to Home Alone 3. I started to wonder where in the store I would find its contents. Luckily, I didn't find it. 7/23/98 -- When Mike asked a man if he would like to pre-order a copy of Titanic, he replied that he could never own, or even watch that movie because it was "bigger than God," and I guess that just wasn't cool with him. Whatever. 8/1/98 -- OK. So this guy wants to rent movies, and we couldn't find his account in our computers. James, who has been the manager for over 2 years, is trying to help him. The man says he comes in there all the time, and he doesn't understand why none of us remember him. He said that he's seen me a lot, but he's never seen James. James said, "I've been working here for 2 years." The man says, "You have not!" James says, "Yes, I have." The man says, "No, you have not!" I don't get people. I give up on the human race. They are all stupid!!! 8/30/98 -- One of our stranger customers, Thomas Flynn, jumped off the top of the sky lift at Stone Mountain today. Don't worry: he had a parachute. He and two friends, who jumped with him, were arrested, thrown in jail, and finally released 40 hours later. Thomas had checked out a video right before they did this. He wanted us to credit off his late fees for him. He said, "I have a really good excuse." I don't think they ever credited them off. He brought in the newspaper to show us the article to prove that he was really in jail. He was so proud that they showed his mug-shot on Channel 5. I knew about this ahead of time, but he wouldn't tell me exactly when he was going to jump. It was a secret that he and his friends had been planning for about a year. He wasn't supposed to tell anyone about it at all for fear that word might spread and the cops would bust them. One of the guys jumped with a video camera, so it's all on tape. He showed it to me. It's pretty cool. The news channels have been trying to get them to give them the tape. They won't give anyone the tape until after their court date which is scheduled for sometime in November. 10/8/98 -- Another person from that Atlanta Church of Christ invited me to his stupid church. They all say the same thing. They say, "Hey, I go to this really cool church". It's the same every time. They all say "really cool church". They could be 40, and they would still say "really cool church". It must be a cult or something. They've all been programmed to say the same thing to everone. I wonder how many strangers they invite a day. Or I wonder if they all got together and said, "Hey, let's pick on that girl". I'm tired of it. I told my co-worker Mike about it, and he said, "You should have said, 'Oh, is that the one where they do that stuff with the goats'". I'll do that next time. 10/10/98 -- I was typing up a membership application for a couple with a little girl who was about 8 or 9 years old. She was sitting on the counter. She says, "What are the Blockbuster Play Packs?", referring to the toy that we were handing out that week to people who rent a kid's video. I showed her the glow-in-the-dark Rugrats Halloween trick-or-treat pail. She says, "Is that it?" I said, "Uh, yes, that's it." She said, "There's nothing in the buckets?" I said, "No." She said, "You should put at least SOMETHING in the buckets." Finally, her dad butted in and said, "Hey, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth." She said, "What does that mean?" He said to her, "They're giving you something for free, so you should be happy that you're getting anything." She said, "Well, we're giving them money for the movies, so it isn't free." He goes on to tell her, "Well, dear, that money goes towards how much it cost them to buy the movie, the advertising, the salaries that are paid to the employees, the rent for the building, the utilities, the..." The little girl interrupted him and shouted, "Daddy! Your breath stinks!" Brat. I hope she dies. 10/16/98 -- This isn't weird, but I just thought that I would say congratulations to my manager, James, who just had a baby girl today. Well, he didn't have the baby; his wife did. Now that would be weird if he had the baby. Her name is Katlyn Rebecca. So, uh, that's all I have to say. We're all happy for ya James! 10/19/98 -- Again with the Rugrats Halloween Bucket. This lady rents a kids tape (I don't remember which one), so I hand her a Rugrats bucket. She says, "What's this?" I told her that it was the current kids play pack prize (try saying that ten times fast) and that she gets it for free for renting a kids tape. She said, "You know, your company should really try to promote a cartoon that is less violent than Rugrats." I said, "You're kidding." Rugrats is a cartoon about babies. How violent could that be? What is wrong with this woman. Most kids watch Power Rangers and stuff like that, and their parents don't mind. Now that stuff is kinda violent, but Rugrats? Get real! 10/21/98 -- For some reason, some people want everything for free. These two men kept asking my co-worker, Mike, for everything. "Is this free? Can we have this?" Mike politely told them, "No, that isn't for free...No, you get that for free if you bring your movies back before 8:00...No, you get that for free if you rent a kids tape." He said, "I swear, we could put dead puppies on the counter, and people would say, 'Is this free? Can I have one?'" 10/24/98 -- OK. This isn't a weird thing. Wait, maybe it is weird. I'm going to talk about a cool customer. That is pretty odd: a NICE customer. I am talking about Wayne Smith. This man is one of the coolest people I know. He came in one night, saw that we were busy, and helped us return tapes to the shelves. We told him he didn't have to, but he did it anyway. He comes in, tells us jokes, and he gives us flash cards sometimes. "What are these flash cards?" you might ask? Where he works, he spends a lot of time on the phone with customers. They can't bad mouth the people on the phone because they will here them, so they have these flash cards that they hold up to show to their co-workers to voice their opinions about the person on the phone. Some examples are:10/26/98 -- OK. This guy says to me, "What's the best movie in the store right now?" I said, "Well, I haven't seen a whole lot of them, so I can't exactly tell you which one is the best. I can tell you which ones are the most popular. The most popular ones right now are Hope Floats and The Big Hit." He says, "The big hit? What's that one called?" I looked at him and said, "Uh, The Big Hit." He says, "No, what's it called?" I said, "The Big Hit." He said, "No, what is the movie called?" I said, "The Big Hit!" This went on a couple more rounds. I was really starting to get frustrated with this guy. So the idiot rents The Big Hit, and then went home without the tape. Moron.10/30/98 -- If a customer has a tape which is two days late or later, we call the customer to remind them that the tape is late because sometimes people just forget that they ever rented a video. We call also so that their late fees won't get too high. If they get too high, they'll skip town and never pay them. A man came in tonight and was suprised that he had a late fee of $12.68. He said, "I didn't know my tapes were late!" Jean, the assistant manager, came over and read the comments on his account. (We comment what the person says on the phone about the late tape on the account for reasons like this.) She said, "Well, we called you when the tape was two days late, and left a message with a male in the house. We called the next day, and a woman said that you didn't live there anymore." He said, "I do too live there!" Then he tried to say that he didn't think that he should have to pay his late fees. When Jean asked him for his reason why, he said, "Well, if you tried to call me, and they said that I didn't live there, then you weren't able to reach me to tell me that they were late, so I shouldn't have to pay." What a dork! He rented them; they're his responsibility. We were just trying to be nice and remind him that they were late. We don't have to do that. He shouldn't have people at his house lying! Don't worry, we made him pay the late fee.10/31/98 -- Here is what one of our customers went as for Halloween:
11/2/98 -- Someone dropped off their tape tonight in the drop box with a sticker on it that said "Your Mammogram is Due this Month." (???????) Gee, thanks!11/7/98 -- These two guys came in tonight, walked up to my register, and handed me two coupons for free movie rentals. Then they just stared at me. I said, "In order for these to work, you have to have movies." One of them said, "OK." I said, "You don't have any movies." He said, "Yeah." I was thinking "This is going to be interesting." They were from another country, but they both spoke English pretty well, so I know that they had to know how things worked here. I guess they were just stupid. I said, "OK. What movie do you want?" He said, "Night Rider." I said, "What? You mean like the TV show?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "We don't have that. I don't think that's even on video." He finally named something that I had heard of: Dead Presidents. I took both of them to the drama section and showed them where the tape was. He said to me, "Why don't you have Night Rider?" I said, "It doesn't exist on video tape." He just stared at me like I was stupid. I walked back up to the front with them. When I got back up to my register, there was another customer there waiting to be helped, but I was going to go ahead and help the other two guys because they were there first. They sat their stuff on the counter. The guy asked me to make sure that we didn't have Night Rider. I've been working there for over three years. I would know if we had a freaking Night Rider video. I probably would have rented it just to have a good laugh. So, I amused this guy and looked it up, and of course, there was no Night Rider tape listed. The two guys left their stuff on the counter and walked off. I waited a few seconds to see if they would come back, but they didn't, so I went ahead and helped the guy who had been waiting. Then a line formed. I had helped about three people when they decided to come back up. Of course, they walked straight up to the counter and expected me to wait on them right away. I said, "You have to get in line." They got mad at me because I didn't help them right that second. They got out of the line, so it's tough luck for them. You can't throw your movies on the counter and expect to have your place saved. It turned out that the guy had someone else's card, and he wasn't even on the account. He didn't understand why I couldn't rent to him. Then he wanted to get his own card, but he had no ID whatsoever with him. God! Stupid! And what is the deal with Night Rider? That show sucked back then, and it still sucks now! 11/9/98 -- These two guys came up to my register to rent movies tonight. One of the guys didn't have his card with him, so he took out his driver's license. While I was pulling up his account, the other guy was standing near the security thing-a-majiggy that beeps when those bad crooks walk through. Ours is a little sensitive, so the guy got a tape too close to it and it went off. No big deal. It happens all the time. I decided to joke with him a little by telling him that the cops were on their way to get him. He said, "Ooo, the pigs are coming to get me?" His friend said, "Those damn pigs." I finished renting the movies to him. He walked around the counter towards the door when I noticed that he had left his driver's license on the counter. Once again, in an attempt to be funny, I said, "Hey, don't forget that. You might need that if the pigs pull you over." They both looked at each other, and then looked at me. They flipped open their wallets, and they both had police badges. I said, "Hey, you started it. I was just playing along." Oopsie-doopsie. 11/17/98 -- I was renting Suicide Kings to this guy today. I mentioned to him that it looked like a good movie. He said to me, "Well, I just moved here from St. Louis, and I don't have any friends yet, so you can come over and watch it with me." Yeah, sure. I'm going to hang out with some weird guy I've never met. Uh huh. 11/20/98 -- Stupid person of the day: The man walks in a video store and says, "Do you have football schedules here?" Uh, yeah, just let me pull them out of my butt! 11/21/98 -- This lady came in tonight. She's a somewhat regular customer. She kept looking at me funny and said, "Do you have a twin?" I said, "Uh, no, not that I'm aware of. Why?" She said, "Well, do you work at Ingles then in Tucker?" "No", I replied. She said, "Are you sure?" Uh, I'm pretty sure of the place of my employment, and Ingles isn't it. She claims that there is a girl that works there that looks exactly like me. She said that she was sure it was my twin. Now I have to drive to Tucker and see this girl. I'm curious. If I ever see her, I'll let you know what I think. 11/27/98 -- I knew someone would try this. They do every year. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. This group of guys came up to my register and put a couple of tapes on the counter. I pull up the account of one of the guys and there was a $3.17 late fee on there for a tape that was returned today. I told him that there was a late fee because the tape that he returned today was due back yesterday. He said, "No, it wasn't. You were closed yesterday for Thanksgiving, so I couldn't return it." 11/30/98 -- OK. This was one of those weird days. One of those days where I attracted every freak on the planet. I never attract normal people. (Well, except for you Ben. I'm not talking about you...you are completely normal...yeah right!) Anyway, first this guy came in and I was checking his movies out to him and he kept staring at me. Weirdo. Then, I walked up to this guy and asked him if he needed any help. We're supposed to do that - it's part of our job. It doesn't necessarily mean that the employee likes you - they're just doing what they're supposed to do. Apparently, this guy didn't know this. He kept following me around the store, asking me stupid questions and smiling this goofy smile. I was trying to stock candy, and he said, "Oh, the sweet putting up the sweets." Oh, how corny. I finally just started ignoring him, and he eventually left. While putting the candy out, there was this guy standing in line. He said to me, "I know you, we went to high school together." I've never seen this guy before. He also looked about 5 years older than me. He said, "Didn't you go to Norcross High?" I said, "No." He said, "Then I know you from Berkmar High." I said, "No, I went to Meadowcreek." He said, "Oh, yeah, that's where I know you from. I would never forget your face." How on earth could this guy have possibly gone to 3 different high schools? He said, "You were in one of my classes. Oh, what was that teacher's name? Dr. War...War..." I said, "Dr. Warfield?" He said, "Yeah, yeah, that's him. It was either the 11th or 12th grade." I said, "I had Dr. Warfield for 9th grade Honors Physical Science, not the 11th or 12th grade." He said, "No, you were in my class the 11th or 12th grade. I know, it was history. Who did you have for history?" I said, "Coach Standard and Mrs. Pridgen." He said, "Was she chubby?" I said, "I guess you could say that she was 'chubby'." He said, "Yeah, yeah, that was the class. I remember, one day, she gave you a lot of crap about something." I don't believe I ever spoke to that woman once the whole time I was in her class, and I'm sure she never said anything to me. I just said, "Yeah, sure, whatever" and continued with the candy. I'm not sure what his deal was. I wonder if people ever fall for that stupid routine. I sure feel sorry for them if they do. 12/9/98 -- Remember the guy that I was talking about before, the one that said the corny stuff about the sweet putting up the sweets (see 11/30/98)? Well, he called me tonight at work about 10 minutes before closing time. He said that it took him a little while to get up the courage, and he said that he didn't see a ring on my finger, so he wanted to know if I wanted to go out with him. I told him that I had a boyfriend. He told me that he was happy for me and that if my boyfriend ever treats me bad to let him know. He said, "I think you're just precious." 12/12/98 -- This guy came in and handed to my co-worker (Colin) a video game he had rented the previous day. He went on and on about how the game wasn't working correctly. He said that it skipped and jumped. He said that the sound wasn't working, blah, blah, blah. Colin kept trying to interrupt him so that he could explain something to him, but the guy couldn't be stopped. He just kept talking and talking. When he finally stopped, Colin closed the video game box that the guy was holding to show him the cover of it. In BIG letters, the cover said "HOLLYWOOD VIDEO". Moron. 12/17/98 -- Another parent complained about the Rugrats. Is there something about them that I'm not seeing? I offered her the tape, and she said, "No, she can't have one of those." When her daughter said, "Why Mommy?", she said, "They say bad things." ???????????????? 12/18/98 -- There is this one customer that I don't understand. His name is John. He comes in a lot, and he's always really nice, but there's one thing: I've never seen him wear a pair of shoes. Ever! Not once. He came in today with no shoes (of course). It was about 40 degrees outside. I've seen him come in the rain barefoot. I want to ask him what it is that he has against shoes. He kind of reminds me of Sasquatch (sp), so I'm a little scared to say anything like that to him. He might drag me off into the woods. 12/19/98 -- I was just reminded of this the other day, so I'll add it now. 1/17/99 -- Wow...it's been a long time. OK. This guy came up to my register with a couple of tapes. He showed me a cut on his hand and said, "Every time they start to heal, they crack back open again." I couldn't help but look at the blood dripping down his hand. He said, "Aw, that's nothing. You should have seen me when I cut my finger and the skin was hanging off, held on by nothing but my finger nail." Gee, how neat. Thank you for sharing. Then he started mumbling something about stitches and surgery and how he doesn't even need anesthetic anymore because he's so used to the pain. Apparently, he cuts himself a lot. He was just laughing and laughing the whole time he was telling me this stuff. I am going to assume with great confidence that he was dropped on his head as a baby...more than once. 1/20/99 -- This one is a little weird. It doesn't really make sense either. There was this little kid looking at some video games on the shelf. Then, all of the sudden, he fell backwards, out of his shoes?!?! He fell backwards, and his feet came out of his shoes. The shoes stayed in the same spot on the floor the whole time. Who knows. 1/21/99 -- I came into work today, and my co-worker, Erica, said, "God, you missed it!" Apparently, this old man came in today and passed out at the register. I guess he just couldn't handle our prices. Just kidding. Anyway, the man came up to Erica's register. While he was standing there, he just fell backwards. Mike heard a "ping" (the guy's head hitting the candy rack), and the next thing they know, he's lying on the floor. Erica just stood there and looked at Mike like, "What am I supposed to do?!?!" Mike helped him off the floor and got him some water and a chair to sit in. The guy said that he thought he was getting the flu, and then he drove home. The whole time Erica and Mike were telling me this story, they kept laughing. They're going to hell for that. :-) 1/23/99 -- A man asked me if Mafia was any good. I said that I had not seen the movie. Mike heard the man and responded, "You mean Jane Austin's Mafia?" The guy said, "What?" Mike said, "Well, back when it came out in theaters, all the advertisements had the title as Jane Austin's Mafia because all the movies coming out around that time were called Jane Austin's this or Jane Austin's that. They did it to be funny. I think they had to take the Jane Austin off because they were going to get sued or something." The guy said, "Oh, really?" A few seconds pass, and he says, "Who's Jane Austin?" AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! Now there's a person with no common Sense (and Sensibility). -- :-) 1/26/99 -- We sell a lot of different kinds of candy. One of them is called a PushPop. This is what it looks like:
2/8/99 -- A woman called and complained that her Pokemon tape wasn't long enough. AHHHHHH! 2/13/99 -- First of all, I should tell you about the scratch off cards. There's this thing that Blockbuster is doing called "The Trip A Day Giveaway". Each time you make a rental or a purchase at Blockbuster, you get a scratch and win card. You can win a trip to places such as the Cannes Film Festival or Sundance or places like that. You are much more likely to win a free movie rental. Actually, that's what everyone wins (All the cards are winners. Shhhhh -- don't tell anybody.) A woman came up to my register to rent some movies. I pulled up her account and told her that there was a late fee of $3.17. She said, "No, there shouldn't be a late fee. I returned the tape a few minutes after midnight, so I knew it was going to be late, but I had one of those scratch and win cards, and it said that I won a free movie rental, so I put it in the box with the movie and dropped it in your drop box so that the late fees would be taken care of." First of all, the card said "free movie RENTAL". It didn't say "hey, turn this in and we'll take off you late fees!" So, she got mad that we didn't take off the fees and she lost her free rental card. Oh well. 2/16/99 -- A woman called today. She asked me, "I just moved to this county. What channel do I put it on to watch a movie?" I said (in the nicest way possible), "What?" She said, "Well, I have this video, and I want to watch it. In DeKalb County, we put it on channel 3. What channel do we put it on here?" After minutes of explaining to her that her county of residence has nothing to do with her movie-watching pleasure, I don't think she ever realized how stupid her question was. 2/20/99 -- I found a tape on the shelf tonight that someone stuck a sticker on. The sticker read: 2/22/99 -- I was returning tapes to the shelves tonight when I saw a man looking at some tapes. I thought I would be a good little Blockbuster employee and ask the man if he needed any help finding a movie. Big mistake. He complained that we didn't have enough science fiction movies. He wanted to know why we didn't have more. I told him that somehow, Blockbuster decides which movies will rent best at what stores, and that science fiction apparently wasn't one of our high renting categories. I don't know how the conversation got off track, but the man said, "You've been working here a long time, haven't you?" I said, "Too long." He said, "Do you go to school?" I said, "Yes." He asked what my major was, and I told him computer science. That's when he told me that I should quit school and my current job, and find myself a computer job making $90 an hour. Gee, why didn't I think of that! It's so easy to find one of those jobs! (Whatever) Then he told me that I'm a minority in the city of Atlanta (I'm white, so was he), and that in a few years, there's going to be a race war, and I guess what he was trying to get at is that black people are going to try to take over or something. He said that they've all been organizing for years, getting ready for this day. He said that they're going to do bad things to me. So, what should I do, you might ask? Well, he said that all this will happen around the year 2000 (you know, when that Y2K thing is supposed to ruin the world). He told me that with all the money I make at that $90 an hour computer job, I should move up to the mountains and buy machine guns to protect myself. The sad part is that he was being completely serious about the whole thing. I was hoping that this was all some sort of twisted joke that he was building up. No such luck. He said, "I hear that the mountains in Tennessee are supposed to be a good place to go during the war." And, after all this crap that he told me, he had the nerve to ask me if I am single! 2/23/99 -- Psycho-lunatic-there's-gonna-be-a-race-war guy came back in today. He said, "I was listening to the radio today, and they were talking about what I was telling you about yesterday. They really scared me. I'm going up to Tennessee to go look at houses." I think that I'm going to look up his name and remember it so that when "The UniBomber II" starts to strike, I can tell them who he is. 3/8/99 -- The Atlanta Church of Christ strikes again. This time, they got Erica. I heard these two girls just being way too nice to her. I was thinking, "Customers being nice? Nah." They asked her if she is a student. I know why they asked her that. Cults prey on college students because it's their first time away from home, and they're lonely and don't know many new people. They're willing to hang out with anyone, even if it's at some freaky church. Erica has heard that they try to arrange your marriages there. Weirdos. 3/11/99 -- This man came up to my register. I was busy handing another customer his tapes and telling him when they were due back when the other guy starts tapping his tape on the counter trying to get my attention. Impatient butthead. I ignored this. When I was finally through with the other customer (the nice one), I asked the guy how I could help him. He said, "I returned the wrong movie the other day. This one was the 2 evening rental, and the one I already returned was the 5 day rental. The tape that he was handing me was an Olsen Twins tape that is a 5 day rental. I checked it in, and it came up as one day late. I pulled up his account and told him that he had a late fee of $8.55. He said, "Just for that one tape?!" I looked at his rental history, and it showed that the tape he returned two days ago was Ever After, which is a 2 evening rental. So, he was wrong. He did return the 2 evening rental first, and was returning the 5 evening rental today. I said, "Well, this one here is the 5 day rental. The one that you returned two days ago was the 2 evening rental, but you returned that one 2 days late, and you returned this one one day late." He said, "No, Ever After was the 5 day tape." I said, "Did it have a red cover on the front?" I showed him a tape with a red cover and pointed out the bright yellow circle on the front that said "TWO EVENING RENTAL. DUE BACK TOMORROW BEFORE MIDNIGHT." He said, "It had a red 5 on it." I said, "We don't have any tapes with 'red 5s' on them." He said, "But why is the late fee $8.55? I could have re-rented those for less money than that!" I tried to tell him that he couldn't have. To rent Ever After for one day (in other words -- two evenings), it costs $3.49. The late fee for each extra day you keep it late is $2.99 (Gee, that's less than re-renting the movie for an extra day, isn't it?) The late fees for 5 evening rentals is $1.99 a day (the same amount it cost to rent it in the first place). So, if Ever After was two days late, and the Olsen Twins tape was one day late, it still would have cost him more money to re-check them out for the amount of time that he kept them out late. And he knew that. He was just trying to get out of paying his late fees. It would be one thing if it were his first time renting, but the dork had rented 57 movies prior to this, so he knew what was going on. He was just being an asshole and trying to start a fight. Then, he kept shouting, "And what's the moral to this story?!?!" I said, "What?" He yelled it again, "What's the moral to this story?!?!" I wanted to say, "To not bring you stupid tapes back late, to read the covers of the boxes before you take them home, to know when you crap is due back, and to not blame your stupidity on me," but I was a good girl and said, "Sir, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking me." I knew that would just irritate him more. He said, "Well, I'm sure." Then, he left. All the customers behind him in line made fun of him. Schmuck. 3/21/99 -- I rented some movies to a woman, she paid for them, and we both walked around the counter towards the door so I could hand her her tapes. Before she left, she said, "Let me ask you something. Have you ever been invited to this church..." Before she could finish, I said, "Yes." She said, "The Atlanta Church of Christ?" I said, "Yes." "The one at the Gwinnett Civic Cent..." "YES! I was invited last week." I guess she just wasn't expecting me to say yes. She had this confused look on her face. She said, "Uh, OK. Uh, bye." Hey, I just realized: She's the first person that didn't utter the words "really cool church." Maybe there's hope after all. 3/27/99 -- A woman and her son came up to my register with three cover boxes and said that she wanted to rent those movies. She didn't have the actual tapes in her hands; just the cover boxes. I kindly asked, "Were there tapes behind these boxes on the shelves? That's what you have to bring to the front. Those have the tapes inside of them." She said, "Oh, really?" I said, "Yeah. I need THOSE boxes." She just stood there and looked at me. A couple more seconds went by, so I decided that she just didn't realize that she needed to go get her stupid movies, so I went and got them for her, even though I had a line forming. I came back to the front with all of the tapes, and the lady wanted me to wait for her son because there was another tape that he wanted. The other customers were starting to get annoyed, but her son finally came back with ANOTHER COVER BOX! Stupid. So, I had to go back and get another movie for them. When I came back to my register, I asked, "Do you have your card with you?" She said, "Oh, we're from out of town." I'm thinking "so what." I said, "Do you have a card from out of town." She looked at me with a confused look on her face. She responded, "No." I said, "You have to have a card to rent movies." She said, "Oh, really?" Tell me, what person on the planet doesn't know that you have to have a card to rent movies? Otherwise, how would we know who we were renting them to, and who to look for if they didn't bring them back? She said, "Well, I'm staying with a friend." As if that changes the fact that you need a stupid card to rent movies!!! The whole time this is going on, I keep hearing these sounds, like bells or jingles or something. They just kept getting louder and louder. I kept looking around, but I couldn't find where they were coming from. I finally get it through to the woman that she can't have the movies unless she has a card, but of course she has no ID on her to open up an account, and doesn't understand why we need to see her driver's license to assign a card to her in her name. She eventually left, and then I see where the noise is coming from. There is a woman walking around the store with her stands full of wind chimes. She was trying to sell them to all the customers. I wonder what possesses people to do the things they do. And why a video store? What do wind chimes and the movie viewing public have in common? Why did she pick us? And why wind chimes? Whatever. 4/4/99 -- Animals suck the brain cells out of humans. I just noticed it today. This lady brought her dog in today. No, it's not the same lady with the dog that crapped all over the place. This was a different woman with a little "foo-foo" dog, as I call them. She was carrying it all around the store. These people just do this for attention. I know they do. How can they not notice the sign next to the door that says, "NO PETS"? Whenever they bring these little pests in the store, I always pretend that I don't see the dog because what they want me to do is say, "Aw, what a cute dog." I refuse to do this. If you want to take your dog somewhere, go to PetSmart. Anyway, my point is that people are stupid around their pets. I was scanning the woman's movies. She was holding the dog in her arms the whole time. The dog made one little squirm, and she said, "Where do you think you're going? Huh? Where do you think you're going? Where do you think you're going? Huh? Huh?" Lady! The dog isn't ever going to answer you, so why do you keep asking it the same question over and over? I put her movies in the bag and hand them to her. She takes the bag and walks out the door holding her dog. She says to the little runt, "Come on. Let's go." What choice does the dog have? You're holding it! It has to go with you! I wonder if people realize just how stupid they sound. 4/5/99 -- A guy outside the building knocked on the window and asked for an application for employment through the drop box slot. Yeah, what a good way to present yourself to your desired future employer. Too lazy to walk inside the store. That would be too much trouble. Dumb ass. 4/8/99 -- Someone set off three stink bombs in the store. There was glass everywhere. I was beginning to wonder why the customers were walking in the door and then immediately holding their noses. Maybe because the smell of fart and rotten eggs isn't appealing to most people. 4/9/99 -- Customers are getting a little too personal with me lately. I really don't need to know every tiny detail about their personal lives, and I'm not Dr. Joyce Brothers, so I don't know why they are asking me for advice and telling me their problems. A couple came in a couple of weeks ago. As soon as they walked in, the man said, "Let me ask you your opinion. We were just arguing about this in the car. We just got married two days ago." Nick said, "Let me guess - she fell asleep on the honeymoon night, right?" The man said, "No, she was just fine that night..." and he told us way too much here, so I'll spare you. He said, "Like I said, we've been married for 48 hours, and now she tells me that she wants to go to Jamaica, which is fine, but she wants to go with her friend who is male. Would you let your wife go?" Oh, no. I'm not getting involved in this one because one of the two people will get mad at me. A few days ago, another couple came in. They were at my register, and the guy complained about his girlfriend not "hooking him up" in the restaurant that she is a waitress at. He said, "She gave one couple a free appetizer, and she gave this other guy his whole meal free, but when I come in, I have to pay for everything -- even the drinks!" This went on and on. Then, the other night, this guy came in and said, "I need a movie about a boyfriend and a girlfriend who have never done it, and at the end of the movie, they do it. Do you have any like that? My brother has his girlfriend over, and he wants to get laid." I said, "Sure it's for your brother." He said, "No way, I've got my game going on. I got lots of girls." What the hell does "game" mean? Oh well. I'm going to have to start charging for all this extra personal advice. 4/11/99 -- Stupid question of the night: "Cherry Coke. Does Coke make that?" 4/17/99 -- A very fashionable woman came in today (wearing green sweat pants, black cowboy boots, and a bright pink scarf around her head). She informed me that Cold Turkey is the funniest movie in the world. "Have you seen Cold Turkey?" "No." "Oh, you have to see it. It's sooooo funny. Just be sure you have a towel under you because you'll wet your pants like I did." Whoa there lady. Too much information I think. 4/18/99 -- A woman parked her car in front of the store so that she could drop her tapes in the drop box. After she dropped the tapes in, she knocked on the window in order to get my attention. I see a woman holding a cat's paw, making the cat wave at me. Then the woman turned around and left. I've never seen this woman before. Why would she want her cat to wave at me? Like I said before: pets suck the brains out of their owners. 4/26/99 -- I have come to the conclusion that kids today are taking way too many drugs. This kid came in today, about 16 years old. He asked, "Do you have Subspecies 4?" I said, "I think that one's on the new release wall." I walked him to the tape, but just the cover box was there. The tape was checked out. I said, "Well, this is where the tape would be, but it's checked out." He yelled, "Aw, man!" Believe me: this is NOT a movie to get upset over. I said, "And I think we only have one copy." He said, "Really? Cool! Can I have it?" I said, "Uh, I didn't mean the copy is here, I just said that we only have one copy. It is currently checked out." He replied, "Oh." I said, "If the tape were here, it would be on the shelf." He said, "Hey, let's go check the shelf!" "Um, we just did. We're standing right next to it. And guess what, the tape still isn't here." As the snooty waiter said in Ferris Bueller's Day Off: I weap for the future. 5/5/99 -- Well, they did it again. Remember the last time when some idiot smashed the window and stole the John Tesh CDs? Well, they smashed the window right next to it this time and stole 3 videos. "What 3 videos?" you might ask: Aberration, 54, and The Apostle. They stole the videos that were closest to the hole they made. Cowards. They tossed a huge rock through the window. We found the rock in the middle of the popcorn display. We currently have the rock on display on our counter. We certainly do have stupid criminals. They steal the dumbest things. I hear The Apostle sucks. 5/22/99 -- The other day, the power went out for some time. Mike had to close the store for a while because without power, the computers won't work, and we can't pull up people's accounts. A man came up to the door only to find that it was locked. He knocked on the window, and Mike opened the door just enough to tell the man that we were closed due to the power outage and that we would re-open as soon as the power came back on. The man replied, "When will the power be back on?" Gee, let me call my psychic friends and find out because you know that power outages are very predictable. Whatever. 6/8/99 -- Today, a woman could not figure out how to get into the store. She stared and stared and stared at the two doors in the front of the building (one labeled "ENTER" and the other "EXIT", with a handle on the ENTER door, and no handle on the EXIT door). She finally, of course, chose to enter the building through the EXIT door. How brilliant. Pulling a door open with no handle proved to be difficult for her, but she managed to get in. Once in the store, she proceded to ask many stupid questions. She showed me a gift card that she had and said, "How much is this good for?" It said in BIG BOLD letters on the front "$5 GIFT CARD". Hmmm. She then wanted to know if she could buy a movie with it. I told her she could. A couple minutes later, she came to the front with three rental tapes (with the cover boxes, as if I need those). I asked her if she had a Blockbuster card. She said, "No, but I have this gift card." I finally got her to understand that she had to have a membership card in order to rent movies. I told her that we need a driver's license and a credit card in order to open an account, and she took the membership application from me and said, "OK." She filled it out and handed it back to me with the credit card area blank. I said, "I need you to fill out the credit card portion of the application." She replied, "Oh, I don't have one of those." By this time, I was really losing my patience. I said, "Well, if you don't have a credit card, we will need some type of official statement that has your name and current address on it, such as a utility bill, voter's registration, etc." She said, "Here's my license." "Yes, but we need another form of ID besides that." "Well, I don't have that with me." "Well, I can hold these tapes for you and you can go get it." "Can you rent them to me now, and I'll call you with the address?" What the hell does that mean? "NO. YOU CAN'T DO THAT. I need the piece of ID here so I can see it." "Well, here's my license, it has my address on it." Don't start that again. I had to say "2 types of ID" about 7 or 8 times before she finally dropped the driver's license thing. She eventually left and never returned with the ID. And yes, she did use the EXIT door on her way out. 6/12/99 -- So I smelled a fart. While looking around, wondering what direction it was coming from, the woman standing at my register looked down at her three year old and said, "Ewww, boy. Now I have to drive you home smelling like that. You stink." The boy just gave her a strange look, and then continued to rip bags of MnMs off the racks. I bet you five bucks that lady farted and tried to pass the blame onto her kid. Some people. 6/19/99 -- A woman called tonight and asked Erica if we had a specific movie. Erica can't even remember which movie it was, but it wasn't even listed in the Blockbuster database. She told her, "I'm sorry, but we don't carry that movie." The conversation ended there. About a half an hour later, Erica was in the back room getting candy to re-stock. Brent came back there and asked her, "Did you tell a couple of women that we would hold X movie for them?" "No, I told them that we didn't have that movie." A couple of minutes later, Jean comes back there and asks the same question. Erica went up to the front to find two women pitching a fit over a movie that they claimed we had. Erica heard them say, "But she told us that you had two copies, and that you would hold one of them for an hour." Erica walked up and said, "I was the one you spoke to, and I told you that we didn't have a copy." One woman looked at her and said, "How can you stand there and look at me and lie like that?" Before Erica said something that she shouldn't, she walked away. Jean was trying to be nice to these women, saying that she would call the store up the street just in case they mistakenly called the wrong store, but she knew that wouldn't get anywhere because that store wouldn't carry the movie either if it wasn't even in the computer. They wanted the manager's name, and they complained and complained and complained, and they said they would be back on Monday to speak with her. They left, and then they came back about 20 minutes later to rent a different movie. They went to Brent's register, and they still complained and complained and complained. Brent said, "Look, there's no point in you still going on about this. You already said that you're going to come in here and speak to the manager about it, so why don't you just drop it for now?" One of the women called him an asshole. He replied, "You don't have to be a bitch about the whole thing." Erica really appreciated that because that's what she wanted to call them all along. 6/23/99 -- When people have tapes that are really late, we call them to remind them, you know, just in case they forgot that the rented tapes or something. I called one woman today. I dialed the number, and a small child answered: 6/25/99 -- Tonight, a woman did not have her card, but told Erica her name so she could pull up her account. Erica did not find her name in the computer, so she asked if the account could possibly be under another name. The woman gave an alternate name, Erica found the account, and nicely said to the woman, "Since you don't have your card, I just need to see your driver's license." The woman replied, "What do you people want from me?!?!" Erica said, "Your driver's license." The lady said, "Oh," and handed her the license. Bizarro. 6/29/99 -- A woman asked to have her change given back to her in all new quarters. Sigh.7/1/99 -- A woman and her kids rented their movies and left. As they were walking through the parking lot, a man who was entering the store started yelling and cussing at one of her kids. The woman came back in the store with her son and said to Mike, "I want you to come with me back here and hear what I have to say to this customer." Mike said, "Oh, God." He walked back there with the lady and she said to the man, "I want to know why you cussed at my kid out in the parking lot." The man replied, "Your kid threw a bottle out of the window of your van. He's rude." She said, "He said he dropped it." The man said, "No, he threw it. You can ask that guy right over there," pointing to another customer in the store. This woman and her kids are regular customers, so I know them well, and I also know that I wouldn't trust anything that kid says. I'm sure he threw the bottle. She said to the man, "How would you like it if it were your kid that was being yelled at?" The man's wife spoke up and said, "Our kid knows better than to do that." They argued for a few more minutes, and the woman and her kids started to leave the store. Someone (I'm not sure who) said, "Redneck." Her kid turned around and said, "You're the redneck!" and gave him the finger. Yeah, kid. That's really helping your case. 7/3/99 -- I hate the people who park their cars in front of the store. It's bad enough when people do it when they just drop their movies off, but when they park their car there and come in to shop for an hour, that really ticks me off. What makes them so special? Why don't they have to park in a parking space like everyone else? Anyway, it was raining tonight, and a man walked in and told Mike, "Whoever has their car parked in front of the store needs to move it because no one can get by and the other cars are getting backed up into the street. Everyone's honking out there. A man looked up when he heard this. Mike said, "Is the car yours?" The man replied, "Yes." Mike said, "You can't park your car there. You have to park it in a parking space like everyone else. The man said, "Well, my wife's in the car." As if that changes anything. That's even worse because she has to see all these people stuck behind her, and she's not moving the car. The man walks outside, moves the car, and comes back in. He gets in line to rent his movies. When he gets to the front, he says to Mike, "My wife said that people were able to get around, and that there was a slow person driving behind her, but that was it." Mike said, "It's a yellow curb. You're not supposed to park there." The guy behind him in line said, "That was me behind your car honking. I wasn't driving slow. I COULDN'T GET AROUND YOUR CAR." Later on, an off-duty police officer came in. Mike asked him if a cop would have done anything about it. The cop said, "No. It was raining. Cops don't want to get out of their cars if it's raining." That makes me feel so good. Cops apparently melt when they get wet. Awwwww. 7/9/99 -- You probably know about the Million Dollar Contest thing (whatever the hell it's called). The deal is: an account number is picked everyday, if that person should happen to have had their card scanned at some Blockbuster that day, they win a million dollars. The company calls that person the next day to let them know they won. If one more person asks me after I scan their card, "Uh, did I win?", I swear I'm going to leap over the counter and say, "No, you just pissed me off, so you are no longer a part of this contest. NEXT!" 7/11/99 -- A few things today:Called Keith. He told me to call Trina Called Trina. She told us she didn't have tapes. Trina yelled at me for calling her. Called Keith back. Told him it was not our responsibility to get involved in his affairs. Told him to call Trina himself.Second, I was renting movies to an older couple, and for some reason, they decided to tell me that they were going to go home and have sex. I really didn't want that vision in my head.
7/18/99 -- Well, first of all, a guy wanted to use a rent-5-get-one-free punch card that was over a year old.
7/23/99 -- I was doing the call list today. I called this one guy (Rick) to let him know that his tapes were 3 days late. I got his answering machine. This is how his message went. I thought it was kind of amusing. 7/30/99 -- A grown man got in my line tonight, opened his wallet to take out his card, and on top of all of his credit cards was a gold Beanie Baby Club Membership card. How pathetic. 8/1/99 -- A man was in my line. I was scanning his movies. Then he just blurted out "I've gotta pee. I'm going to go home and pee." He took his movies and left. There's some things that the Blockbuster clerk does not need to know. 8/3/99 -- I swear to god, if I ever see this little girl in the store again, I'll leap over the counter and rip every last hair out of her head. The girl is probably six years old. We have probably a dozen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tapes, different episodes from the cartoon series. She and her mom brought two up to the counter to rent. The little brat said, "Hey, you better check the tapes inside those boxes because the last time I was in here they gave me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tape that had the wrong episode inside. You people need to do your job better!" And her mom didn't say anything to her. She didn't tell the girl to mind her own business or anything. If she comes in again, I'm going to trip her and say, "Gee, you need to watch where you're walking. You need to walk better. Die, brat, die!" 8/20/99 -- This woman at my register was on her cell phone. Normally, this REALLY irritates me. You try to tell them their total or that they have a late fee, and they don't hear you and they hold up the line. I was a little pissed off at first when she started dialing a number, but after I listened to her conversation, I was laughing too hard to care. I heard her talking about her daughter who is in kindergarten. She said to the person on the other end, "Yeah, Cindy decided to play barber shop in school today. She found some scissors and started chopping off her hair. Then she cut this other girl's hair, and then she cut some more of hers off. She ended up cutting nearly all the hair off of four kids in the class, and now I have all these parents who are pissed off at me." That was a good one. 8/27/99 -- Little kids strike again. For some reason, little kids always want to see what's going on behind the counter. The counter is too high for them to see over, so they try to climb up the counter and pull themselves over it to see what's going on. I can't tell you how many kids have hurt themselves trying to do this. Smacking their nose or their chin when they fall -- it amuses me sometimes. That sounded really bad. Oh well. Anyway, this man had three kids with him. They were all yelling and screaming and being annoying, but of course he didn't do anything about it. And of course, his kid climbed up the counter with half of his body on my side of the counter and the other half on his side. Did his dad say anything to the kid, like "GET DOWN FROM THERE"? Nooooo. And when the kid grabbed my scanner and started scanning everything he could reach, do you think the dad said anything? Nooooo. So, when the kid turned the scanner around and started shining it right into his eyes, even though there is a big warning on it that says -DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY INTO THE BEAM. MAY CAUSE BLINDNESS- ? Nooooo. Let the kid burn his retnas. I don't care. 9/10/99 -- A woman asked me, "You know that movie that has Austin Powers in it? What's that movie called?" I said, "Uh, Austin Powers?" "Yeah, that's the one. Where is it?" What the hell?! 9/13/99 -- I was going through the mail at work. Usually, we are sent checks from customers wanting to pay their late fees. One of the envelopes with a check in it also had a letter from the customer. I love it when they do this. They think that this letter is going to hurt our feelings or something, but it just makes us laugh. Here it is:To whom it may concern: Previously, late fines were paid the next time you rented a movie. The fact that they treat you like a criminal, sending notices to pay, show how much they appreciate repeat business. So don't worry about revoking my rental privilages. I am cutting up my card and will now be patroning Hollywood Video instead.
9/15/99 -- A few days ago, a really old man came in and wanted a membership. He took what seemed like two hours filling out the application. We type in all the information and give him the card. After all that, he walked around the store for about five minutes and then headed for the door. Someone asked him, "Nothing for you today?" He replied, "Well, you don't have any pornos." It took every bit of strength inside of me not to laugh. Well, the man came back in today. He returned a couple of movies to me and said, "You know, I just want to commend your company on something." I said, "Oh really? What's that." He said, "I'm proud of this company for not renting out X-rated movies." I wanted to say, "What are you talking about?! I was in here the other day when you were griping about how we didn't have any. I know you didn't change your ways in a week's time." But, I didn't. I just nodded my head and smiled. Then he said, "Yeah, you guys don't rent the porno videos, and that's good. Now Screenplay Video over on Highway 29, now they rent pornos. And that Home Video place over near the mall, they have 'em. And..." He went on and on naming all the video stores within a five mile radius that carry X-rated videos. Yeah, you don't watch them. Sure. 9/20/99 -- Not really a funny customer story, but a prediction for the next month: I predict there will be an increase in the suicide rate of Blockbuster employees over the next 30 days. Why? Because of the damn trailer tape they sent all the stores this month. What's a trailer tape? It's the tape that we have to play in the store all the time that has movie previews of the latest video releases. It also has music videos. That wouldn't be such a bad thing if they played something decent. We just got the new tape in. This month's video picks: Britney Spears, N'Sync, Christina Aguilera (however you spell it), and Bewitched. Why must we be subjected to this grotesque display of teen pop culture? It's only been a couple of days, and I already want to slit my wrists. 9/22/99 -- A woman asked Erica, "There is a video that you have for rent that I've been trying to find for sale, but it's no longer available. You have two copies for rent, so I was wondering if you could possibly sell me one of them. Erica said, "Well, usually we're not supposed to. What movie is it?" The woman replied, "Ernest Scared Stupid." I can't believe someone would want to pay money for that thing. Erica left a note for the store manager which read: "A customer wants to know if she can buy one of our rental copies of Ernest Scared Stupid. Yes, I am serious." 9/23/99 -- Erica noticed this comment on the call list the other day:
Kevin cannot return our tapes because he is in jail. All of Kevin's belongings are with him.I didn't think you could take your stuff with you to jail. :-) We'll probably be getting our tapes back in 3 to 5.
9/24/99 -- A woman asked Ron for a copy of The Out-of-Towners. He said, "I'm sorry, but we don't have any copies of that one in." She said, "OK. I want a rain-check then." Ron replied, "Uh, that tape isn't one of the guaranteed rentals." She said, "The sign over there said that if the tape isn't in, it's free." Ron said, "Well, there's some fine print on the sign that says 'Only on Selected Titles.'". The fine print isn't even that fine. It's written pretty big. She's just like most customers. They only see what they want to see. She said, "Well, that's embarrassing for me because I had to come up here and ask for a free movie when I can't have one. Your signs are very misleading. That's false advertising." Blah, blah, blah. 9/26/99 -- This was pretty funny. A woman comes in with her three daughters. Approximate ages: 5, 8, and 11. The 8 year old says, "I want to rent Leprechaun." The mom says, "I don't know about that. Isn't that a scary movie?" The girl says, "I like scary movies." They walk over to the shelf. The mom sees that Leprechaun is rated R. She says, "Oh no. That one's rated R. You can't see that one." The girl says, "But I want to see it." The mom says, "You can't see that movie until you're 17. It's rated R. Now put it back and we'll pick out something else." "Nooo!!! I want to get it!" The mom says, "You can get it, but you're not watching it." The girl says, "Fine." The mom sighs and says, "You're not seeing this movie. You're not old enough. Now put it back!" The girl has a hissy fit, starts pouting, and won't let go of the movie. "Put it back I said!" "NO!" Then the lady gets me involved. Great. She says, "Isn't this movie rated R?" I said, "Yes, it is." "See, you can't rent it because it's rated R. Put it back!" The mom tried to take the tape away from her daughter, but the girl wouldn't let go. She starts screaming, "I WANT TO SEE IT!!!" God, it's just Leprechaun. It's not even a good movie. The mom says, "We can pick out another scary movie that isn't rated R." The little girl yells, "There aren't any scary movies that aren't rated R." The mom tries to take the tape from her again. This time the girl lies face down on the floor on top of the tape so her mom can't get it, kicking and screaming, "I WANT IT! I WANT IT!!!!!!" The mom tries this line: "OK. You're not going to get anything at all." Well, that one didn't work. Then the mom said, "OK. We're going to go rent our movies. If you don't come up here, you're not getting anything." Of course, the girl is still sitting on the floor and she won't budge. The mom is so frazzled, she forgot to get her change after paying for her movie ($16.30 in change). That's kind of a lot to forget. Then, the lady tries this one: "OK, we're leaving. Bye." Most kids will get up and chase mommy out the door, crying all the way. Not this kid. She just sat in the floor and started mumbling to herself: "I want that movie. I want to see it." She's just sitting there clutching The Leprechaun, rocking back and forth. Five minutes go by, and she's still sitting in the floor. I was starting to think that the mom actually left her. I sure would have if that were my kid. The mom eventually comes back in, drags the kid out of the store, and puts her in the back of the mini-van. Too bad you can't have an abortion 8 years after the kid's born. Oh, that was mean, wasn't it. Oh well. 9/27/99 -- I don't know exactly how this conversation even got brought up, but a customer told Cheryl (the store manager) that there are 52 states. She said, "Uh, no, there are 50." He said, "No. There are 52 of them. I promise." I don't know what planet he's living on. Then he said, "I'll bet you $100 there are 52 states." Cheryl said, "OK. You're on." She should have got the guys phone number and address so that she can actually go and collect as soon as he realizes what an ass he is. 10/5/99 -- Well, I had to bail one of my co-workers out of jail tonight. Hey, at least I got out of work early. The person who was arrested doesn't want me to put his/her name on the page. Oooooo. Blackmail! :-) He/she didn't pay a speeding ticket, and the cops ran his/her plate, and pulled him/her over and they were arrested. Before I went over to the jail, I changed clothes. I have this problem: everywhere I go, some Blockbuster customer will recognize me and say, "Hey, aren't you the Blockbuster girl?" The last place I wanted this to happen was at the county jail. Anyway, I went to go bail blank out, and of course, there were two customers there. God. I hoped they wouldn't recognize me. I went and got blank out (who, by the way, still had his/her Blockbuster uniform on). On our way out the door, the customer said, "Hey, don't you work at Blockbuster?" I said, "Uh, yeah." He said, "Yeah, I have a huge late fee..." blah, blah, blah. My co-worker said, "OK. I'm the one with the Blockbuster uniform on, and he asked you if you worked at Blockbuster?!?! 10/23/99 -- A man came in and asked me, "Do you have any new movies where a lot a people die?" As if this request wasn't weird enough, he then asked, "Or what about a movie where a bunch of people just get cut up?" Don't worry. I notified the police. :-) 10/29/99 -- This lady today was just being a total bitch (excuse my language). She and her husband came in to rent some videos. I mentioned that the credit card that they used when they signed up for the account was expired and that we needed the new expiration date. Not that big a deal. She starts yelling before her husband can say anything, "What do you mean?!?! That credit card has been cancelled, so I don't know what you're talking about! We cancelled that credit card 7 or 8 years ago, and we opened our membership with you about 8 or 9 years ago! I don't know what you're talking about!" I replied, "You opened your membership in this store, and this store has only been open for 4 years, so you must be thinking about a different credit card." The stupid woman kept yelling about I don't know what (she wasn't making any sense) while her husband just stood there and didn't utter a word. Then I noticed that there were tapes that were checked out on her account that were a day late. I said, "Do you still have Analyze This and Civil Action checked out?" She said, "NO! We brought those back 2 days ago! You people need to start doing your jobs correctly, blah, blah, blah..." Meanwhile, the customers behind her were rolling their eyes at her. I went to the shelf, and the movies were there. I apologized because it was our fault. Accidents do happen, especially when you have just hired a few new people. They make mistakes. She wouldn't shut up. "You know, where I work, if I don't do my job, I get fired." Erica's mom just happened to be in the store and said, "So, how much does it pay to be a professional asshole?" I love her mom. 10/31/99 -- While taking tapes out of the drop box, I found a box with the wrong video inside. It happens all the time. People will accidentally return their kid's Teletubbies tape or their soap operas or something. The tape the person was supposed to return was Payback. Instead, they returned a tape called Hot Licks - Finger Style. Eeew. I showed it to Colin. He shouted, "Yes! We've got porn!" He eagerly grabbed the video and popped it in the VCR that we have at the front of the store. It ended up being an instructional guitar video. Needless to say, Colin was crushed. 11/14/99 -- I hate small children, and what I hate even more than small children are their parents who don't watch what their kids are doing. This kid (about 6 years old) walked behind the counter tonight. No big deal. They do it all the time. Kids are curious. But this kid wouldn't leave. I watched him as he walked back there and looked around. The kid looked like he was on some kind of drugs. He just looked kinda zoned out or something. The kid went too far when he started opening cabinets and drawers. His parents were nowhere in sight. I said, "You can't do that." He continued to open cabinets and take things out. I said, "You can't be back here." He wouldn't move, so I had to push him out into the store. He then saw a large window cling that we were supposed to put up outside earlier that day but didn't. The window cling was a big picture of Pikachu (of Pokemon fame). He took it off the counter and tried to peel the sticky side off. I said, "No. You can't do that." He said, "I want it." I said, "No, you can't have it. It's ours." He wouldn't put it down, so I had to take it from him. I sat it back down on the counter, but he went after it and picked it up again. So, I had to take it back from him. Right about that time, a customer asked me to show him where a movie was. I had to carry Pikachu with me. The kid followed me to the back of the store mumbling "I want it." The kid's parents were still nowhere to be found. The kid went back behind the counter again and started pulling stuff out of the cabinets again. This time when I took the stuff out of his hands, he said, "It's mine!" and tried to pull it away from me. When his mom finally showed up, she saw that her son was behind the counter bothering me, and she didn't do anything about it. Moral to this story: watch your freaking kids or next time I'll wrap him up in the stick window cling and stick him to the wall. 11/20/99 -- Gale was returning movies to the shelves when he saw a customer licking the edge of one of our tapes. Gale said, "Don't you know how many people have touched that?" The guy shrugged his shoulders and continued to lick the tape. 12/15/99 -- Erica answered the phone and said, "Thank you for calling Blockbuster Video on Club Drive. This is Erica speaking." The man on the other end said, "Are you the person that I confess my sins to?" Erica, thinking he just meant that he had late tapes and was going to try to tell us some stupid story to get out of paying them, said, "Uh, I guess so." The guy said, "OK. Well, sometimes I go into women's restrooms and hide in the stalls and wait for other women to come in, and I ask them questions. I get some pretty interesting answers. Would you like to hear some?" Erica replied, "Um, are you sure you called the right number? This is Blockbuster Video." He said, "What? My friend gave me this number and told me it was an adult party line." Erica said, "No, sorry, we just rent movies here." Then the man said, "Well, would you like to hear my stories anyway?" Erica said, "I really have to get back to work." I think I would have listened to at least one story. 12/20/99 -- A man asked to use the restroom today. I had to go unlock it for him because too many people steal stuff and go into the bathroom to shove that copy of Big Daddy down their pants. We had to start locking the door. I let him, and he is thankful. About 10 minutes later, I had to go to the back room to get something (which is right next to the restrooms). As I approached the door, I noticed that the trash can from the restroom was blocking the door, keeping the door from shutting. The man was standing near by looking at videos. I guess he saw the confused look on my face because he said, "Oh, I'm just letting the bathroom air out a little." I'm still nauseous. 1/2/00 -- Colin answers the phone today, and the lady on the other end wants him to pull up her account to let her know if there are any late fees she hasn't paid. He asked her for her last name. For some reason, he couldn't understand what she said, so he asked her to repeat it. She did, and he still couldn't understand her. After having her repeat it a couple more times, the lady was starting to get irritated. He asked her if she could spell it for him. She replied: 1/12/00 -- This didn't happen at my store. It happened at a friend's store (Donald Southerland). No, not the actor. Every Monday, we pull PVTs. What does this mean? PVT means Previously Viewed Tape. We pull rental copies off the shelf and sell them to the customers because after a while, we don't need 217 copies of Big Daddy. A customer walked into Don's store the other day and said, "Hey, did you pull any Peckers lately?" She soon realized what she had said and turned red. I said, "Hey, at least she wasn't looking for the movie Dick." 1/21/00 -- We have a queuing system in the store. For those of you who don't know what a queue is, it means a line. Instead of having seperate lines at each register, we have a red velvet rope and one line forms there, just like at the bank. There were probably about 20 people in that line and one customer at each register. The man at my register was filling out a membership application and was almost done. Another man walked up and sat his movies down on the counter next to him. Patrick, an employee at the store, said, "Sir, the line starts over there." The man replied, "I don't have time to wait in that line." OK. I have worked for Blockbuster for 4 and 1/2 years, and by now, I hate every person on the planet. But, the people I hate even more are the people who think they are better and more important than everyone else. So, I said, "No, you need to go to the back of the line." He said, "Those people in line don't even know I'm here." I said, "No, they do. And believe me when I say they will come over here are scream at you and me if I wait on you first, so you need to go to the back of the line." He said, "You aren't even waiting on anyone right now!" I said, "I'm waiting on the guy standing right next to you." He said, "But he's filling out an application." I said, "Listen, he's almost through with it and then I'm going to type it up for him and rent his movies to him. Even if I was going to take another customer while waiting for him to finish, it wouldn't be you because you weren't next. Now, go to the back of the line." The man just stared at me for about 10 seconds and then finally walked away. Grow up asshole! 1/29/00 -- OK. This isn't about one specific customer or about a specific situation. This is just me venting about what our country has come to. This weekend, and last weekend, there was an ice storm in the Atlanta area. The weather on the east coast has really sucked lately. All the water on all the trees froze over night. The weight of the ice became too much for the trees to hold, so a lot of trees fell down. I mean a lot. Power lines were down all over the place. If you did have power, then most likely you didn't have cable. So what did everyone and their grandmother do this weekend? They rented movies because they had nothing better to do. Is that what we have come to? Think about back in the day before there were VCRs or cable or even TV. What did people do back then? They talked to each other. Families these days are pretty pathetic. All they know how to do is watch television. That is so sad. So, everyone came and rented movies. Half of our employees couldn't make it to work because the roads were too icey to drive on, or they had trees everywhere in their neighborhood and couldn't get out. But the customers: they drove through neighbor's front yards if they had to to come and rent a stupid movie. And then they had the nerve to complain that they had to wait in line to rent their movies. I watched parents (with their children) drive over ice, over downed power lines, and around fallen trees just to rent movies. They risked their lived and their childrens' lives just because they were bored. I know you people have some movies at home that you own that you could have watched. What was wrong with those? You didn't have to risk your life to watch those movies! You didn't have to stand in line and yell at us about how long you had to stand in line if you just watched a movie you already had! Talk to your family every once in a while. Play with some cards. Read a friggin book. Is that too hard for you to do? Get a fucking life people! Get your priorities straight! Because next time, I'm bringing brass knuckles to work, and I'm going to punch out everyone of you that complains to me how busy we are because it's all your fault. OK. I'm done. 1/31/00 -- Two men came in five minutes before closing. They picked out their movies and came up to the counter. We'll call them Bob and Stan (I don't remember their names, or even care to remember them.) Bob gave me his card, and then the two of them began to talk about condoms. Then Stan asked me, "Hey, we have an extra crack rock in the car. Would you like to buy it?" I said, "No thanks. I'm trying to cut down." Then Stan said to Bob, "Ya know, I wish I were never circumcised." "Why's that?" replied Bob. "Because I'd be longer." "Bullshit," said Bob. "I would too. I'd have that extra flap of skin staring at me." By this time, I'm starting to walk away. Bob said, "How much is my total?" I said, "It's $23.26." Bob put a 10, a 5, and a 1 on the counter and continued to search for more money. When Bob wasn't paying any attention, Stan grabbed the $16 and replaced it with a 20 and a 5, and then walked out the door. I took the $25 and gave Bob the dollar and 74 cents in change. He said, "How much money did I give you?" I said, "Well, you gave me $16, but your friend took it and put down $25." Bob screamed, "I've been fucked! My ass is sore! Is your ass sore? No, because you weren't fucked! I was fucked!" He walked out, and I made sure to lock the door. Turns out the two of them were at the store earlier during the week pissing in the parking lot. 2/3/00 -- A woman came in and sat her movies on the counter and asked Paul, "Can I check these out now and pay for them later?" Paul said, "Uh, no. You have to pay for them before you can take them." She said, "But I'm an hour late picking up my kid, and if I have to go back out to my car to get my money, it's going to take even longer!" #1 -- Why did you come into the store without money in the first place. #2 -- If you are an hour late picking up your kid, how in the hell did renting a movie take higher priority? 2/9/00 -- A man came in and said to me, "Can you pull up my account. I received a notice in the mail saying that I have a $25 late fee. The thing is, I meant to return the tapes, but I had to leave town on an emergency and I forgot to return the tapes, but I returned them as soon as I got back. Is there anything we can do about the late fees?" Usually in cases like these, we offer to split the late fees in half if the customer insists that they don't want to pay the whole amount. I pulled up his account, and there was a $44 late fee. $25 of it was for the tapes which he was talking about, but there was also a $19 late fee for two other tapes he returned late. I told him about the other late fee and he said, "Yes, I tried to return those on a Sunday night, but you closed early due to the ice storm, so I guess they weren't checked in until the next morning." I said, "Uh, yes they were checked in the next morning, but they took off two days of the late fees already because they knew that people were having problems getting to the store. So, you actully had more late fees taken off then you should have." He said, "$44 is too much to pay." I said, "OK. I'll do this. I'm going to take off the whole $25. I'm only supposed to take off half, but I'm going to take the whole thing off since there was an emergency. That leaves a late fee of $19.02." He says, "I don't feel comfortable with paying a late fee that large. Could you cut that in half?" I don't feel comfortable paying a late fee that large? Well, you're just going to have to get comfortable asshole. I said, "The store manager already took off two days of late fees on those tapes. You're only paying for 3 of the 5 days they were late." He said, "That's still too much to pay." I told him that was all I could do, and then he asked for the number to the corporate office and my name. It's 1-800-KISS-MY-ASS. 2/16/00 -- A woman called tonight yelling at me about her VCR. She said that our tape messed it up and that we had to pay for it. Her boyfriend/husband/friend (whoever the hell he was) brought the VCR up to the store earlier in the night and spoke with Colin about it. Colin told him that he needed to clean the heads. I said to the woman, "Hold on just a second. I'm going to ask Colin what happened because I didn't hear the whole conversation when he brought up the VCR." She said, "OK." While Colin was trying to explain to me that their VCR was filthy and that he couldn't adjust the tracking because the guy didn't bring the remote with him, I heard the woman on the phone yell at someone in her house, "You fucking prick! You're such a fucking prick! I can't believe you're going to leave me here to deal with these cops with all this fucking weed all over my house!!!!" I think a broken VCR would be the last of my worries in a situation like this. 2/17/00 -- I saw a little girl holding the bathroom door open, having a conversation with someone inside. When I walked around the corner to see what was going on, the girl was talking to herself. You know -- mothers shouldn't take drugs when they're pregnant. 2/20/00 -- Well, the day started off with me finding a huge ass dent in my hood. Then I stepped in cat puke, and to top it all off, the one thing many of you e-mailed be about and hoped would never happen to me happened. Psycho letter-writer guy came in. I haven't seen him since he gave me the letter. If you don't know what I'm talking about, see the entry on this page for 3/6/98. He's the one that wrote the really screwed up letter saying that he thinks about me all the time. I was returning tapes to the shelves tonight when I notices a customer out of the corner of my eye standing a few feet away. Before I even looked at the guy, I said, "Are you finding everything OK?" He only replied with a "Hello." Right in the middle of my return "hello," I realized who he was. I pretended that I didn't recognize him, and I continued to return the tapes to the shelf. That's pretty much all that happened. I guess he thought he could strike up a conversation with me. I didn't let it happen. I wasn't about to talk to him. I went up to the front of the store and told Colin that he was there. Colin was there when the guy brought me the letter two years ago, so he knew about the whole thing. He told me to go hide in the back room, but by then, it was too late. He was already standing in line, and it would require me to walk right past him to get to the back room. At least he didn't try to say anything else to me. The only problem is that he has a rewards card. For those of you who know what a rewards card is, you know this means he probably plans on renting a lot of movies, and it means he'll be back. I dread the day I get stuck checking out his movies to him. Wish me luck.
Nona,
A week after I wrote you the letter I was going to come
into the store, but as I was driving to park, I could see you
inside the store. You, a fellow employee and two customers were
laughing and having a good time. Then I stopped and realized
that if I would come in the atmosphere would change. That if I
came in the beautiful smile might leave because I would make you
feel uncomfortable and also I know I had to remember what I had
written in the letter. I didn’t know how you felt about it, but
I hoped that you would not care at all. I was honest as I could
be. I thought about it a lot before I wrote it and felt good
about it after I did. I am a shy person by nature. I have a
big fault in that I have never been a very good small talker.
I’m too serious. But I try to be honest in all my relations
with people.
That night I left the letter, I heard you say that some man
had chased you all over the store. You said that because you
wanted me to hear it. You looked at me very annoyed. I know I
had to leave you alone. I got a little angry because I had the
letter in my pocket and I just wanted to give it to you, hoping
that it would bring some peace to the situation. I wanted to
make you feel good. To let you know I cared about you and
hoping that you would have some good thoughts about me, even if
I never saw you again.
Because someone cares about another doesn’t mean that it
will or even has to be returned. Maybe that’s the way it should
be.
The first time I ever saw you I could see a goodness in
your soul, even though you were so far away from me. I felt
like I knew you even though I had never talked to you.
I was going through a relationship that was going badly. I
felt raw and wounded inside. I saw you and knew that you are a
special woman. I saw you and asked myself, why was I feeling
this way. Asking myself what was I thinking. You feel like you
still love one woman, yet looking at you and felt drawn to a
soul that was so beautiful, warm and so feminine. I suddenly
felt like I wish my soul could flow into yours always there,
never wanting to leave, somehow wanting it more and more and
even more again. It was a feeling of such pure beauty. It felt
like a journey one has to make. A journey on a long day, home.
To everything in the world that important.
Writing this I suddenly realized maybe I’m too much of a
romantic. But this is how I felt and feel now.
When ever I have come into your store and you're not there,
I felt a little more relaxed about just (can’t read word)
getting some movies. When you are there it’s like a wonderful
cloud. It comes over me. I feel you everywhere. Something so
much more than me. I feel more whole, more alive.
I know that many times I have just stared at you. Not
saying anything. I know it seems rude. It’s just I am a shy
person by nature. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable where
you work, yet I know I have. I look at you and wish I could
look at you forever. I felt the softness of your cheek, yet I
never have, or a single strand of hair flowing down your neck
and seeing the beautiful simplicity of it. Softness so much
sweeter, yet stronger in spirit than me.
I would never ever want to lie to you. To make you feel
uncomfortable at work or cause you problems.
We all understand ourselves more than maybe others do.
Please don’t resent me. Please understand that I care about
you. I wish I could somehow touch something in your heart that
would last forever. To always keep you feeling warm. To always
make you feel loved, even in times that maybe don’t seem so
bright. Somehow wanting to know that you will always have that
inner beauty that I have seen and know is in your heart.
Sometimes I feel distant when I think of you. But then a
flora of love comes over me bringing you back into my heart.
Like the sea flowing on to a beach.
I told myself that I should stay out of the store but I
knew that one day I would come back. When I asked someone if
you still worked there I felt a flow of joy when they said,
yes. Then a small touch of sadness. Sadness in feeling in my
heart that it may never be returned. But maybe that’s not the
important thing. I don’t want to stop caring for you. It makes
me feel more human and alive. Hoping that you may look at me as
someone special, not a problem in your life. I saw how
beautiful and graceful your hands are. They captive me so much.
Please let my words make you feel better. Don’t let them
make you feel uncomfortable. You don’t owe me anything in
return.
Sometimes I think of you and it makes me feel so serene,
warm and peaceful. I drift off to sleep feeling a glow of love
inside of me. When I awaken sometimes I feel you will never
care for me. That, maybe its best that way. Then the next time
I awaken I feel warm thoughts of you again. Never wanting to
let go holding it to me tenderly.
Please don’t resent me. Try to understand this letter may
make you feel uncomfortable, but I had to say how I feel. I
wish I could somehow make you feel good forever. Hoping there
will always be a angel to watch over you.
Feel blessed when others love you. Take the path you feel
is true.
To pursue this sometimes I feel a little foolish. To let
it go would be wrong. Life is beautiful even if it sometimes
seems unfair.
Someday I hope you will understand me if you don’t now. I
looked in your eyes after not seeing you for so long. You
seemed nervous and a little afraid. Please don’t feel that
way. I love the strength I see in you and I bask in the glow I
see around you. You glow with a special energy all your own.
The world seems so much better when I see you. I try not to
stare at you but sometimes I feel that I have to. I feel like
my soul is filled again. I feel life and beauty when I see you
even when you don’t see me.
I hope this letter will bring you good feelings. Don’t
feel you have to respond to it.
I found it so hard to talk small talk when inside I feel so
much that I wanted to say. Maybe I didn’t want to say something
goofy because I was holding so much inside.
Be patient with me, I need you to do that for me. Please
feel strong and beautiful inside. You are so special to me.
Love
John
OK. So, should I be scared? This is so fucked up. I wouldn't be so paranoid if I hadn't seen the "E! True Hollywood Story: The Rebecca Shafer Story" just a couple of weeks ago. E-mail me with any suggestions you may have about what to do in this situation. I don't want to get anywhere near this guy. He scares the hell out of me. He looks crazy. He says that I'm strong and have such a wonderful spirit and crap, but he doesn't know me at all. I helped him find a movie two years ago and he hasn't forgot it since. I've been told I should call the cops, get a restraining order, buy a gun, etc... I've also been told that the cops can't do anything unless he threatens me. I have no idea what to do. Let me know what you think. 2/27/00 -- Psycho man came in tonight. I saw him in the comedy section. I went into the back room (the door automatically locks) and called Colin in the front. I told him that the psycho was in the store, and he said, "I know. I see him. Stay there." Psycho checked out some movies, and Colin said that he kept looking around the store for me, but he couldn't find me. I'm sure he saw that I was in there, but I don't know if he saw me run to the back. Ten minutes after he left, he called the store asking to speak to me. Colin told him that I was in a meeting. He said he would call back later, but he never did. Thank god. I'm hoping that he figured I didn't want to talk to him and he'll take that as a hint that I don't want anything to do with him. I know I should just tell him myself, but I don't like to look at him. I'm already having enough nightmares as it is, and his nasty face isn't going to make them any better. 3/12/00 -- I was in New York for nine days and returned yesterday. I went into the store today to rent a movie, and Erica and Nikki said, "Oooooo. You're stalker has been in here looking for you." They said that he asked about me once, asking if I still worked there. They said he's been in there several times looking around the store for me. I'm not looking forward to going back to work. 3/21/00 -- A man came in and asked where New Jack City would be. Adrian told him it was in the action section. He went to look for it, but a minute later he came back and said, "I can't find it. Can one of you find it for me?" I walked over to the action section. The man asked, "Is this stuff in alphabetical order?" I told him it was. Then he said, "New Jack City. That should be in the "W"s, right?" Yeah, "W" for "Wow. You're stupid." 3/31/00 -- Just a tip for all of you out there who rent videos, or just go to any type of store. When you need a clerk's attention, the appropriate way to do this is not by saying, "Psst. Psst. Hey!" A simple, "Excuse me" will do. 5/11/00 -- I'm very, very, very, very, very sorry that I haven't updated the page in a while. It turns out that I have scared a couple of you. You thought that psycho man kidnapped me or something. Well, luckily, I have not had anymore contact with him since the night I hid in the back room from him. He does come in all the time, but he comes in during the day (when I'm not there usually). He has asked if I still work there. Jean told him that I did, but that I was taking some time off of work (which I did do), but she told him that I was taking time off of work to plan my wedding (which isn't true). She figured that if she told him I was getting married, he would leave me alone. We'll see. But, in the past month in a half, I have taken about 3 weeks off work, I had finals to deal with, I almost quit my job, and I've been sick for two weeks, so that's why there haven't really been any updates. I took my last final three days ago, and I'm back to work, so I promise regular updates. I really promise this time. Some things that have happened: A kid took one of our popcorn buckets and put it on top of his head and started repeating, "Look mom! I'm Jesus's Pope!! I'm Jesus's Pope!!!" I don't know what that was supposed to mean. Then the kid came behind the counter and started going through the trash can, pulling out stuff, saying, "Can I have this?" There was also the lady who told me, "I can't have a late fee. I brought those tapes back on time!" (Our stuff is due back before noon now, just in case you didn't know.) I told her that the two late tapes were checked in at 10:00 PM. She said, "That's impossible because I'm in bed by then." I said, "Well, did you check out those two tapes?" She said she did. I said, "Well, they were checked out at 10:30 PM." If you're going to lie, think it through before you do. There was the guy who got mad because he rented a copy of Galaxy Quest and there was something wrong with it. We gave him a refund for it, and Ricky said he was sorry for the inconvenience. The guy got mad because he didn't think Ricky was sorry enough. What did he want him to do? Start crying, "Ooooo. (sob, sob) I'm so sorry about your tape!!!!" And last, but not least, the guy who could barely speak a word of English when he came up to the register, until I told him he had a late fee and he replied, "That's bullshit." Hey, at least he's learning some good American phrases. I promise more updates later, and to those of you I scared, sorry. Won't happen again. 5/13/00 - A woman called today to ask me if I could hold a video for her for a couple of days. We can usually only hold it for an hour. The woman told me the reason why she needed it held for her for two days was because her 13 year old daughter has had seizures all of her life which last 4 or 5 hours at a time, so the doctors are going to make a map of her brain to figure out what is wrong, and in order to do this, they have to remove her entire skull. She wanted her daughter to be able to watch the movie after the surgery. I've heard a lot of weird excuses, but that one I think tops them all. It seemed a little fishy to me, but I held the movie anyway. 5/15/00 - I forgot to put this one on the page, so I'm adding it now. A tape was returned in the drop box one morning with this note attached to it:This movie would have been returned on time if not have been for the Gwinnett County D.U.I. Traffic Surveilance tonight. If you can find it in your heart to forgive it being late, I would find it in my heart to forgive the Gwinnett County Police Department for detaining me. Have a blessed day.
5/22/00 - It finally happened: I was forced to talk to psycho man. He came in this morning to return some tapes, and I was the only one around to take them from him. He said that he brought them inside instead of dropping them in the drop box because he wanted to make sure they weren't late. While trying to avoid eye contact, I checked in the tapes and told him there were no late fees. Then he asked why he hasn't seen me lately. I didn't want to say too much to him, but I didn't want to piss him off, so I just said, "I've been busy." He wanted to know what I was busy doing, but I didn't offer too much information. Then he told me that he was sorry if he made me feel uncomfortable or scared or something like that, and then he mumbled something like, "I'm only human, and we all have our faults." Then he left. I hope he doesn't take this as an invitation to come in and talk to me all the time. After he left, one of my co-workers said, "Ooooo. You're gonna get another letter tomorrow." I hope not. 5/23/00 - I came in today to return a tape. I was wearing a shirt that has a white box in the middle of it with the word "Helium" in the middle of the box. It's a shirt that I got at a Helium show. (Helium's a band, for those of you who don't know). If you've ever looked at the pictures on my trip page, you'll see me in this same shirt standing in front of the pyramids in Egypt. Anyway, as I was trying to leave the store, a somewhat regular customer stops me and says, "Why does it say "Helium" across that particular part of your shirt?" (The "Helium" just happens to be written across my chest.) I replied, "It's a band." He said, "Oh, am I embarassed. I'm supposed to be a gentleman. Boy did I goof up." Oh, now that you realize that it wasn't referring to my chest size, now you've messed up? You mean it was OK for you to say it before you knew what it meant? What I really wanted to say to him was, "No, it doesn't mean that my bra is filled with second element of the periodic table. It's a band, you FUCKING PRICK!!!!" There. I feel better. 6/1/00 -- One of our regular customers came in tonight (I won't give out his name since he's a rap producer and someone out there might know who I'm talking about, and then it would get back to him that I was making fun of him on the internet, and then he wouldn't speak to me anymore, blah, blah, blah). Anyway, he asked me if we had the movie The Shinning. I took him to the horror section and picked up the coverbox and said, "Is this what you're looking for?" For those of you who don't know what the cover box looks like, here ya go:
6/2/00 -- A woman called up tonight as said, "I rented a movie at your store yesterday, and I'm trying to return it right now, but I can't remember how to get back to your store. Can you give me directions?" That was a new one I had never heard. 6/4/00 -- A customer got punched in the head today. No, I didn't punch him, even though I have fantasized about it on occasion. It started out as road rage. The little guy was on his way to return a tape when the big guy honked at him for some reason. The little guy decided then to give him the finger. Bad idea. Both the little guy and the big guy drove into the parking lot. The little guy came in to return his movie, and the big guy followed, yelling and screaming, and punched the guy in the head. He then walked out and left. I called the cops, but by the time they got there, the guy was gone. The cop asked me if I got a license plate number. I said, "Yeah, right, like I'm going to run outside and say, 'Oh, Mr. BurlyMan, could you give me a second to right down your license plate number before you punch me?'" They don't equip Blockbuster employees with guns like the cops, but they should. 6/16/00 -- A woman came up to my register with two movies. I said, "Do you have your Blockbuster card?" She said, "No, but I have these." She showed me four gift cards (which are like gift certificates). I told her that she had to have a Blockbuster card to rent the movies. She said, "But I have these," showing me the gift cards again. I told her that we had to have an account to check the movies out to. She
said, "But not when parents are given these!" I tried not to be rude, but I said, "What? We have to have a card so we know who we’re renting the tapes to." "But not when parents are given these!!!" I was completely confused at this point. I just repeated what I had said before, and she got mad and said, "This is ridiculous! I’m never using this place again!" How could you have ever used the place if you didn’t have a FRIGGIN
CARD?!?! 6/24/00 -- If you have never used your card at a specific Blockbuster, your account won’t just automatically show up in their system. If you have your card, they can scan it, and your account will be uploaded from a national database
that stores everyone’s account. If you don’t have your card, your account can be pulled up by typing in your name, but only if you have rented at that store recently. Otherwise, we have to have the account number to access it. Does that make since? Sometimes, if someone doesn’t have their card, and they haven’t rented at our store before, we’ll call the store that they normally rent at and have them pull it up and give us the account number so that we can access their account. Tonight, a store about three miles down the road called us to pull up an account. They guy said, "Yeah, the last name is Raymond. First
name is Usher." Usher didn’t have his card, and appearently, he has rented at my store before, and I never knew it. I heard that he lived in the area, but I didn’t know he lived that close. I later found out that he also rents at another store about three miles in the other direction of our store. He was there just a few weeks ago bitching about a $6 late fee. You’re Usher! You can freaking afford it! Hey, I wonder if he rented Light it Up. 7/6/00 -- A woman called the store to ask if we carried a certain movie. I told her that we did and that I would hold it for her. She then asked for directions. When I asked her where she was coming from, she told me the intersection that she was at. I recognized one of the street names (Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road), but not the other street name. I told her that the easiest way for her to get to our store would be to take Intersate 85 South. She asked, "Well, do I have to turn left or right to get onto the highway?" I said, "I don't know which direction you're coming from on Lawrenceville-Suwanee, so I can't tell you which way to turn. You have to go south on I-85, and I'm sure there will be a sign to let you know which ramp is for 85 South. You'll want to go towards downtown Atlanta." She said, "That's OK. I think I'll just stop by a gas station and buy a map." How dumb do you have to be to not understand how highway signs work? When she finally did make it to the store, she left one of her business cards with Colin. I'm not sure why. I looked at the business card and found out that she is a real estate agent. She has to take clients to houses on a daily basis, but she doesn't understand north and south. Sigh. 8/23/00 -- As if things couldn't get any worse at my store, they have. On Monday, our hard drive crashed. This usually isn't that big of a deal. We'll have to go manual for a while (meaning that we have to write down every transaction, and then type everything in the computers later, once they're up and running). This is a pain in the ass, but you get over it. Blockbuster makes these back-up tapes for times like these. At the end of each night, we put a tape in the computer, and it records everything that happened that day and the previous days. There are seven of these tapes (one for each day of the week). We just re-record over these each week. If the hard drive crashes, we're supposed to use the late back-up tape we made to back-up the system. It turns out that our back-up tapes are junk. They haven't saved anything since August 5th. Oops. We lost every bit of information from August 5th to August 21st. If someone acrued a late fee during that time, poof, it has vanished. If someone checked out a movie on August 20th, we don't know they have it. They could never return it and we wouldn't even know. But also, if a customer rented a movie on August 4th, the computer still thinks they have it and it thinks that it's two weeks late. And if a person paid a late fee on August 6th, it's back on their account. This crash also messed up our inventory and payroll information. It deleted account that were created in the past two weeks and re-assigning the account numbers to the new members we're adding in this week, so some of the customers are going to have strangers using their accounts. It's a huge mess. I know this isn't a stupid customer story, but I thought it was kind of funny anyway. Well, I'm just now learning to laugh about it. 8/26/00 -- We now have a DIRECTV system in the store. We're starting to sell them now. We aren't actually supposed to be watching the TV. We're supposed to be playing a promotional DVD which loops every three minutes or so. Billy messed with it and put it on a station which was showing Braveheart. I really didn't care. The only problem is, he forgot to turn that channel off before he left, and later that night, I hear a customer yell from across the store, "Oh my god! They're fucking!" I look at the TV, and there is a porno on. I grabbed the remote before anyone else could see it. Luckily, the customer that did see it was cool about the whole thing. He actually said, "Hey, put it back on that channel!" 8/27/00 -- A man came in and used our phone to make a call, which is no big deal, but we didn't realize until later that he was using the phone to page pimps and hookers. How nice. 9/2/00 -- I'm going to try to be as PC as I can. A woman came in tonight with four mentally challenged individuals in their late teens or early twenties. One of them asked an employee, Brandon, for John Wayne movies. Brandon told him that they were in the action section. The guy asked Brandon where the action section was, so he pointed to it. He still didn't understand where the action section was, so Brandon said, "I'll walk you over there." I personally watched Brandon walk this guy to the action section. Brandon told him that he was not a fan of John Wayne movies, so he didn't know any John Wayne titles, but if he wanted a John Wayne movie, it would be in the action section somewhere. This was only Brandon's third day on the job, so he's not going to know where everything is in the store. This was Labor Day weekend. We were very busy, and Brandon had three or four other customers asking him for help at the same time. The guy said, "Thank you for your help," and went on his merry little way to find his movie. About ten minutes later, I hear the woman that came in with them say to John, "I'd like to speak to the manager." Oh god. She said to me, "I don't like the way your employee treated my people!" I said, "Uh, what?" She said that Brandon was rude to the guy with her. I didn't see anything happen, but I told her I would talk with him and that I was sorry that she felt that way. She kept saying, "They're people, just like everyone else in here. They're just like you and me." I said, "I didn't say they weren't." She said that Brandon was a horrible person, and he should be punished for the way he treated "her people". Whatever. She never did tell me exactly what happened that was so horrible. I did talk to Brandon after she left. I said, "Hey Brandon, don't worry about her. She's crazy. I saw you helping the guy myself. I don't know what her problem is." Ten minutes later, the woman's brother calls the store. He said, "I want two free rentals on my account because of the way your employee treated 'my consumer'!" Then he changed his mind and said that he wanted three free movies or else he was going to call the news and tell them how Blockbuster treats their disabled customers. He said that 'his consumer' was in his room crying because of the way he was treated tonight. He wanted me to fire Brandon right there on the spot. I said, "I don't know what happened." He said, "My sister told you in the store what happened!" I said, "No, she didn't. She just said that Brandon was rude. Why don't you tell me what exactly happened?" He dodged the question by saying, "I want all of my movies to be free from now on or else I will be forced to call all the news stations!" Call Clark Howard mother fucker! I don't care! (Those of you who live in Atlanta know who Clark Howard is.) I told him that I was not the store manager, therefore I could not fire Brandon. He wanted me to have the store manager (Lisa) call him first thing in the morning so that she could arrange a meeting between him, herself, Brandon, and "his consumer". I don't know what their deal is. Brandon's a nice guy and he didn't say anything to this guy to disrespect him in any way. If we don't have a title of a movie, we can't search the entire action section for one person when there are dozens of other customers in the store that need assistance. These people pissed me off more than you can believe. If that guy felt like he was mistreated, it was only because that woman made him feel like he was mistreated. He was fine when I saw him with Brandon. Maybe that woman and her brother use these people to get stuff for free. I don't know. Billy (another employee) said, "Yeh, they were in here about a week ago, and the guy was trying to rent a movie with only a dollar. I told him that he didn't have enough money and that I couldn't rent the movie to him, and the lady came up and said, 'You can't tell him no!'" I hope they call the news. That's all I need right now. 9/4/00 -- Well, the lady came back today with her brother (the one who said that he was going to call the news) and the guy who supposedly was mistreated. The store manager (Lisa) was there, as well as myself and Brandon. The lady told Lisa that her people were mistreated in the store. Lisa told her that she heard about the situation from me and Brandon, and there was no wrong doing that she was aware of. The lady said the same thing she said the other night: "They are people just like anyone else, and they shouldn't be mistreated!" She kept saying it over and over and over. I think that she thinks that she is their savior or something. She's got some issues that I'm sure some of you psychology majors out there can figure out. While complaining to Lisa about Brandon, she stopped mid-sentence and said to a customer, "Don't stare. He's just like you. There's no reason to stare at him!" If the customer was staring, he was staring at you lady because you were screaming. She thinks everyone is out to get them. Lisa asked her what the problem was from the other night. She claims that Brandon didn't help the guy find his John Wayne movies. Lisa said that she heard from us that he did. She also said, "Brandon was even honest with him and told him that he wasn't a John Wayne fan, and therefore, he couldn't point out any of the titles." Then the lady said, "He could have at least shown him the section that the movies were in." That's when I got pissed and said, "I watched Brandon walk with him from the back of the store to the action section." At that point, she called me a liar and said that she was the one who had to find the action section. Lisa took the lady and her gang and Brandon to the back of the store to further discuss the situation. I stayed up front to wait on customers. I could hear the yelling from the front of the store. The lady's brother continued to call me a liar and Brandon a liar, and then told Brandon that he was raised wrong. That's when Lisa lost it. She said, "OK. You're complaining that people with disablities are mistreated, and you're standing here calling my assistant manager a liar, Brandon a liar, and then you insulted his mother by saying that he was raised wrong. You don't even know his mother. I've had enough of this abuse. You're a hypocrite. I'm not going to discuss this any further, and if you have a problem with it, I'll call my district manager and we will all have a meeting tomorrow morning. The people backed off at that point and agreed that it was all just a misunderstanding. I dare that bitch to come back in the store and call me a liar one more time. If she does, I'll pull out the security tape from that night and show her that Brandon did walk with this guy to the action section. This is so ridiculous. I can't believe I'm letting this get to me. 9/13/00 -- Psycho man came in the store today, and I was the only one there to check his movies out to him. Great. At least he didn't say anything about the letter. He didn't say much to me at all, which is fine with me. 9/15/00 -- I hate it when people lie and think that they're going to get away with it. This woman called about 2 weeks ago and said that she got a letter saying that she had a late fee on her account. She wanted to know what the late fees were for. I told her it was for a DVD and a Playstation game. She said, "My sons rented those. Take their names off the account. I'll be in next week to pay the late fees." So, I put a comment on the account stating what she had just told me. Last week, she called and spoke to Colin. She told him that she had a late fee on the account and didn't know why. Colin told her that a DVD (a 2-day rental) and a Playstation game (a 5-day rental) were returned on the same day and they were late. She said, "The person who checked those out to me told me that they were both 5-day rentals. I shouldn't have to pay the late fee for the extra 3 days I had the DVD." Colin said fine, and he put a comment on the account that said to take off the late fees for the DVD the next time she came in. He didn't see the comment I put on the account. Then she called again today. She said, "I have a late fee on my account, and I don't know why." I told her that she had rented a DVD and a Playstation game, and then returned them 6 days after she had rented them. She said that she returned the DVD on the 2nd day and the video game on the 5th day. I read the comment on the account to her that said she said her sons rented them, and she said that was wrong. Then, I read the comment on the account to her that said she told Colin that she returned them both on the same day because she was told they were 5 day rentals. She said that was wrong. What? So, I asked her if she remembered what day she returned the DVD. She said, "On the day it was due." I said, "No, What day of the week." She said that she couldn't remember that far back. Whatever. I told her that even if she was told that the DVD was a 5-day rental, she returned it on the 6th day, along with the video game. They still both would have been 1 day late. She still insisted that she returned the DVD in on the 2nd day and the game on the 5th day. I told her they were both checked in at the same time on the 6th day, so there was no possible way that they were returned on different days. Anyway, she already told us once that she returned them both on the same day last week. She then said that I was calling her a liar (well, I guess I was, but she WAS lying!) and she wanted my manager's name. I guess she thought this was going to scare me in to taking off her late fees. Didn't work. 10/1/00 -- This didn't happen at my store, but it happened at a store a few miles away from mine. A woman drove her car right through the window. Luckily, no employees were hurt. Unfortunately, no whiney customers were injured either. She parked her car infront of the store. She thought she had her foot on the brake at one point, but actually had it on the gas, and drove right on through. She actually had the nerve to ask one of the employees, "While we're waiting for the cops to show up, do you mind if I go find some movies to rent?" Yes! They mind! You just gave them an unwanted drive-thru window! 10/7/00 -- I answered the phone tonight at work. The guy on the other end said, "Are you the person I confess to when I've been naughty?" People say this sometimes when they have tapes that are late, so I thought that was possibly what he meant by "naughty". I said, "I guess so." He said, "OK. I have three confessions to make. The first one is my girlfriend and I went to a party with nine other couples and swapped partners. My second confession is that I like to go into women's restrooms and read the stuff written on the stall walls. My third confession is..." That's when I hung up on him. Maybe I should have listened to the third confession. The sad part is that this guy sounded like he had a lot of practice at this sort of thing. Also, this is the second time this has happened to me in the past few months. I don't know if it's the same guy, or if someone's just handing out our phone number to freaks as some sort of joke. 10/21/00 -- A man came in three different times today to ask me the same question: "Can I use this free movie coupon for a video game?" Every time, my answer was no, but he still asked anyway. "But I don't rent movies. I only rent video games." Oh well. Too bad. When he didn't like my answer, he asked a different employee who just told him the same thing I did. Stupid. 10/23/00 -- A man called and said that he got a letter stating he had a late fee, but he didn't understand why because he returned his movies on time. If I had a dollar for everytime I heard this... Wesley spoke to him. He looked up the account, found the two movies in question, and told the man, "Both of the movies you rented were 5-day rentals. You kept them for 16 days." The man swore he returned them on time, but both of the tapes were checked in the exact same minute, meaning that the late fee is valid. Most likely, they were checked in the exact same minute because they were both taken out of the drop box the exact same minute. The man said that we must have left the tapes in the drop box for 11 days. Maybe 11 minutes, but not 11 days. Wesley told him that was impossible. The man said, "I'm sitting here in church, and you're telling me I'm lying?!?!" Oh, I see. The fact that you're sitting in church makes you holy or something, so we should believe you because anyone who goes to church would never lie. And the sky is green, and the earth is flat, and I'm the Easter Bunny. 11/2/00 -- I went into work for a couple of hours this morning. Right before I left, this man stopped me. He's there a lot. He's about 60, and he always tells me that I'm pretty. Don't get me wrong. It is flattering, but it's annoying that he says it every time he comes in. He said, "Where are you going beautiful?" I said, "I have to go to school." He said, "You know you're beautiful, right?" I said, "Uh, no." I was trying to walk away (because he's a little creepy), but he kept getting in front of me, blocking my path, and telling me I was beautiful. I started laughing. I guess it was nervous laughter. He asked me why I was laughing. "Because you're weird," I said. He asked me how many boyfriends I had, and I told him one. He asked if he was treating me good, and I said he was. Then he left. Why do I only attract old horny men? 11/4/00 -- The day turned from good to bad as soon as a little girl came up to me to ask for the restroom key for her little brother. She came back about five minutes later to say, "My brother had an accident in the bathroom, and it's on the floor." I said, "What?" She said again, "It's on the floor." I was fearing what I would find in the bathroom. Then I saw the little boy walk out the door with his mom. One entire pant leg was soaked. I figured that the pants soaked up most of the "accident". Nope. I went into the bathroom and said to myself, "How could a kid that little hold so much piss inside of him?" After that was cleaned up, I was checking out some movies to a guy. He asks, "Are you married?" "No," I replied. "Do you want to get married?" I said, "Uh, no, not anytime soon." He said, "Well, I'm looking for a wife." Then his daughter pops up and says, "He's lying. He's already married." Whatever. Later on, Open-head-wound-lady (yes, that's what we call her) came in. We call her this because she has this wound in the middle of her forehead that never heals. She asked if we had The Island of Dr. Moreau. We told her that it was in the action section, and she said, "Will it be in the 'T's?" "Uh, no, it would be in the 'I's for 'island'." I think that everyone should understand alphabetization by now. You do not file under "the" or "a". It's just common sense. 12/23/00 -- It's a busy Saturday night. I was pulling tapes out of the drop box when I heard an "Ooo ooo ooo" sound. Then I heard Wesley say, "Uh, there's a gorilla in the store." I thought he was just commenting on the sound we heard, but then I looked up to see a guy in a full gorilla costume running all over the store with another guy following him around with a video camera. The gorilla ran up to a few customers, jumped up and down, made the "ooo ooo" noises, and then left. I thought we were on an episode of "Jackass" or something. Some customers were alarmed by the fact that most of the employees didn't really react to the situation. They don't understand that we've pretty much seen it all, and a gorilla isn't really going to throw us off. 12/29/00 -- This asshole came in today to complain to the store manager about me. Here's the story: On Christmas day, this man came in at about 3:00 in the afternoon to return his tapes. He said, "I'd like to make a complaint, and I want you to tell your store manager this. I don't like your return policy, and I'm not renting here anymore because of it." This is our new return policy: You get to keep your stuff 12 hours longer than you used to, so everything is due back at noon instead of midnight. Why would he have a problem with that? Don't know. And this new policy isn't so new. It's been around for almost a year now. Anyway, back to the story. I tried to tell the man that he got to keep the tapes 12 hours longer, and I tried to get him to tell me how that was a problem, but he wouldn't answer me. He did say that he saw how the extra 12 hours would help you out on the five day rentals, but not the two day rentals. That made no sense to me. He insisted that I close his account. Of course, the tapes I just checked in for him were late. I said, "I can't close an account with a balance on it." He said, "Oh, I'm going to pay the balance!" So he gave me the $8.46, and mumbled that this was bullshit and that he was pissed off and wanted to know what I was going to do about it. At this point, he had already paid the late fee, and he had already had me close his account. What is left for me to do? I want to know what he was going to do for me because this is Christmas Day, a day that most people don't have to work on, but I do, and this jerk is in the store yelling at me for a problem that he doesn't have with me, but with himself and the fact that he's too stupid to remember to return his movies on time. Anyway, he came in the store again today to tell the manager that I was rude. Whatever. The only person that was rude to him was Richard, who said to him on his was out the door, "Merry Christmas." The guy said, "Yeah, I bet!" and then slammed the door. Ha ha. Thanks Richard. 1/22/01 -- This guy got a notice in the mail showing that he had a late fee of $16.92 for 4 videos which were returned two days late. He came in to dispute the fee. His tapes were due back on 12/25 (Christmas), but they weren't checked in until 12/27. His complaint was that he didn't return them on 12/25 because we were closed, so he turned them in the next morning. I said, "First of all, we weren't closed. Second, they were checked in on 12/27, not 12/26. He said there was no way that they were returned on 12/27, but even if they were returned on 12/26, the late fee would have still been the same amount, and they still would have been late. I told him this. He came back with, "But I thought you were closed on Christmas." I said, "Did they tell you your tapes were due on 12/25?" He said, "Yes." I replied, "Well, then they should have been brought back on 12/25. You were told that was the due date." "But I thought you were closed." "They wouldn't have told you to return your tapes on 12/25 if we weren't open. If they told you to return the tapes on 12/25, then we mean for you to return your tapes on 12/25." "But why would I return my tapes on Christmas if you were closed?" "But we weren't closed!" "But I thought you were. Could you credit my late fees?" "No." "Why?" "Because they were returned late. These tapes were validly late. You were told to bring them back on Christmas, and you said that you brought them back the next day. They're late." "But I thought you were closed." "BUT WE WEREN'T CLOSED!" This kept going on and on and on. I have had it with people trying anything to get out of paying their late fees. Give me a good excuse, why don't you! Tell me that your goldfish burst into flames and that you had to rush it to the animal hospital. The fish didn't make it, so you had to hold a memorial service. The grief caused by the loss of your beloved friend caused you to forget to return the videos, and the high price of the funeral makes it impossible for you to afford the late fee. That would be a better excuse than, "I thought you were closed." 2/27/01 -- Richard! You finally made it to the page! I knew it would happen sooner or later. A woman came in to rent some movies. She had been in the store two days earlier and rented a five day rental and a two day rental. Her two day rental was due at noon today, and of course it was 3:00. The five day rental she returned yesterday because she said we gave her the wrong thing. She picked up the widescreen version of Manhunter and swore she had picked up the regular version and we switched them when she wasn't looking. Whatever. Anyway, they switched out the copies for her yesterday and gave her the regular version. She came up to Richard's register today to rent something else. He told her there was a late fee on the account, and of course she didn't understand why. He told her that the two day rental was due back at noon today. She claimed that the person she talked to yesterday told her she could have the two day rental until 3:00 since the other movie was the wrong one. There was no comment on the account saying this, and that is not something that we would tell a customer anyway. Richard tried to say this to her, but she insisted that it was the truth. He kept trying to explain, but she was being unreasonable. He finally called me over to the register to talk to her. I pretty much told her the same thing Richard told her, but it didn't help. I didn't want to fight her, so I went ahead and took off the late fee. She checked out another movie and left. Brandon had come in the store before all this happened to pick up his paycheck, so he saw all the drama. We had a good laugh after she left. About one minute later, she comes back in the store and throws four one-dollar bills at me and Richard and says, "Well, Mr. Black-hair there thinks I'm a criminal, so take my money!" Mr. Black-hair, we assumed, was Richard. I said, "I've already taken off your late fee. There's no need to give me any money." She said, "Well, Mr. Black-hair can have it!" She walks out the door, and Richard and Brandon start scrapping for the money. She then comes in again and throws her card at us and then leaves. At this point, I'm pissed. If she came in one more time, I was going to start yelling. Lucky for us, she didn't. It was funny watching Richard re-enact the whole incident, trying to throw the dollar bills, but they're just flying in a cloud around her head and she's just swatting at them. Ah, customers are great. 8/27/01 -- Poor, poor, poor Don. We were having a sale this week on previously viewed tapes. They are all $2.00 off. In order to give the customer $2.00 off, we have to first scan the tape (which rings up at full price), and then scan a barcode which takes $2.00 off that price. That's not too hard for most people to understand. This man was buying about 10 PVTs (previously viewed tapes). Don scaned each movie, and then scanned the $2.00 off barcode after each movie. The man was convinced that each time we scanned that barcode, we weren't taking off $2.00, but adding extra tax to his bill. No, I'm not kidding. He wanted us to start over from the beginning to prove to him that Don wasn't charging him extra tax. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to void off ten movies, then void off twenty extra dollars just because you think there is a conspiracy against you to charge you more tax? I voided everything just to make this man shut up. He then watched Don scan every little thing, making sure that no extra tax was added to his total. I still don't think he was completely convinced that we weren't out to get him. I did all I was willing to do for this man, so he paid for his stuff and left. Don was about to punch someone. I gave him a tape to throw instead. 9/01/01 -- I kid you not, a woman dropped her library books in the drop box. I've worked at Blockbuster for 6 years now, and I must say that this is a first. She did eventually realize what she did and came back and got them. 11/27/01 -- I apologize for not updating the page in a while. All sorts of messed up stuff has happened in the past couple of months. I quit my job. Yes, I quit. Sorry. That's a long story that I'll talk about next time. But don't worry. I'm now working at a different Blockbuster, so this page will not end (yet). All kinds of different stuff happens at the new store, so I'll have plenty to talk about. I promise to add more within the next couple of days. I'll tell you about the bitch that took over my old store and the Pizza Hut people. Ooooo. I bet you can't wait! 12/04/01 -- Here's the story: We got this new store manager at my old store that used to work for Pizza Hut. There's nothing wrong with that except that she wanted to bring all the Pizza Hut people with her. That's a problem because the store is fully staffed. So, what does she do? She pisses off all the old employees so that they will quit so that she can hire whoever she wants. I stuck it out the longest. By the time I quit, There were 7 former Pizza Hut employees on the payroll. God, I couldn't stand that woman. So, I took about a month and a half off of work, and then I went back to work at a different location about 3 miles away. I now work with Michele (who also used to work at my old store a long time ago.) This store is a little different because it is what is called a "store in store," which means that it is a little Blockbuster inside a Kroger. For those of you who are not familiar with Kroger, it is a large grocery store chain. It is owned by the same people who own Ralph's on the west coast. When I say that this Blockbuster is little, I mean little. It can't be any bigger than 30 ft by 30 ft. It's probably smaller. It's kind of nice because it isn't nearly as busy as a real Blockbuster, and we don't have nearly as many movies as the big stores. We call our store "Baby Blockbuster." We have a door that leads to outside, and a door that leads into Kroger. It's funny because people are always trying to pay for their groceries in our store. We try to tell them that we're two different companies and that we can't ring up Kroger's merchandise, but sometimes they act like they think we're making that up because we're lazy and don't want to help them. One day, a lady brough in some hemorrhoid cream from Kroger and asked me to do a price check. Anyway, I'll be updating this site with happenings from the little store. 12/25/01 -- By the way, my store closes on Christmas! Blockbuster is famous for being open 365 days a year, but since our store is inside Kroger, and Kroger closes on Christmas, we have to close too. It's because of fire safety laws and the fact that there must be at least two exits in case of a fire. Since Kroger is closed, we would only have one exit. Too bad. I'm not used to having Christmas day off. What will I do with myself? Probably go to Blockbuster and rent a movie. (Just kidding.) 1/16/02 -- One of the fun things about working in a store inside Kroger is the people watching. There is a large window that divides Blockbuster from Kroger. That window is right behind our checkout counter, so when you get bored, you can look out into Kroger and watch what people are doing. One of the funniest things to watch is the Kroger cop. Kroger hires an undercover cop to walk around and act like he is a shopper. Really, he is looking for shoplifters. I didn't know who he was at first. I just knew that this guy must really like Kroger because he's always shopping here. I was thinking, "Man, this guy really needs to get a life." Then, one of the other employees clued me in. Jason, a.k.a. Kroger Cop, will sometimes walk around with a buggy and occasionally put things in it to look like he's shopping. One day, he had a 40 lb. bag of dog food and toiler paper. He always has some weird combination of items in his cart. I asked him one day about this, and he told me that usually, he'll just pick up items that are in the wrong place, and at the end of the night, he'll put them back where they go. He said that when he thinks he sees someone suspicious, he'll pick whatever is in front of him off the shelf and act like he's reading the back of the box. He's actually looking out the corner of his eye at the guy that's trying to steal something. He says that it's funny sometimes because he'll just grab anything that's on the shelf, not really paying attention to what it is because the whole time he has his eyes on the bad guy. Then, he'll realize that the guy isn't actually a bad guy. Then he looks down to see that he's holding a box of Tampax. Embarrassing, I guess. Sometimes he'll be in the greeting card section, and he'll pick up a card and act like he's reading it. Later, he looks down to see that it's upside down, "From Grandmother to Granddaughter", or is in spanish. Pretty funny. I've actually watched him do this stuff sometimes. It's hilarious. You can tell when he thinks he has someone. He starts doing these Mission Impossible type moves, hiding behind shelves and peaking around corners. He has some of the best stories too about stupid criminals. He should start his own web site! He once caught a girl in the baby products isle sqeezing baby powder into her mouth. He went up to her and said, "I'm not going to arrest you or anything. Just tell me why you're doing that." She never would say, but she did ask him not to tell her grandmother. Weird people. He told me about another time before he was working at Kroger, back when he was just a regular cop, chasing this old lady down Beaver Ruin Road on her Rascal. She had stole something from Kroger and Kroger called the cops. He actually chased this lady in his police car at, like, 5 miles an hour. I forgot what she stole, but she was always doing it. Don't worry. I'm sure I will have more stories to tell about the Kroger cop and the criminals he catches. 2/04/02 -- Psycho letter-writer man came in the new store. He came in from inside Kroger to ask where the Driver's License Renewal Department is. (Yes, Kroger has a DMV section where you can renew your license. Truly, one stop shopping.) I thought that this guy looked like psycho man, but it had been so long that I wasn't sure. I told him that is was on the other side of Kroger. He then said, "How have you been?" At this point, I knew it was him. The bad part is, I was the only person there. (Our store is so unbusy that most of the time during the day, only one person works.) I told him that I was OK. He said the same old crap about not wanting me to feel uncomfortable, and then he left. Thank god. Just when I thought I got away from him. Shit! Hopefully he won't be back. 2/16/02 -- Today, a bird flew into the store. We tried for 4 hours to get this thing out. We probably looked stupid because the bird would hop underneath the shelves, and I would be laying on the floor with my butt in the air trying to look under the shelf for the bird, and then a customer would walk in. When the bird finally made it out, he went out the wrong door. He flew into Kroger. Oh well. I tried. 3/02/02 -- This lady walks up to my register and hands me her movies and her card. As I'm scanning her card, she pulls out her cell phone and makes a call. She has a late fee on her account, so I say, "Excuse me, but you have..." She said, "I'm on the phone!" James P. is standing behind me and says, "Did she just say that?!?! I can't believe she just said that!" What a bitch. 5/15/02 -- I had a line of about 3 customers when I hear the one at the end of the line say, "Uh, there's a dog in the store." I look up, and there is this cute little dog trotting around the store. No owner in sight, no leash. He's just a happy little dog running around. I couldn't believe it. Then he ran into Kroger before I could do anything. At this point, I figured it was now Kroger's problem, so I went ahead and finished checking out my customers. When they all left, I turned around and looked out the window into Kroger to see one of the Kroger employees running after the dog. I think that the dog thought it was a game. He was having some dog fun, while the Kroger guy looked pissed that he had to chase a damn dog down. I hope he found his human. 7/19/02 -- I was on my way to work on 07/01/02 and I got into a bit of a wreck. Click here to see the story and pictures from my wreck. If you're easily grossed out, don't look. 9/02/02 -- Michele just reminded me of this today. At the old store, Michele was checking in movies from the drop box. She opened one of the movies to check inside to make sure the correct movie was in the box and that it was rewound. When she opened it, she found a ham sandwich inside. Tasty! 11/30/02 -- Dumb question of the day: "How many days is a 2 day rental?" I said, "Uh, 2 days." He never realized just how dumb his question was. 6/15/03 -- A lady walks up to James P's register to rent a video game for her 8 year old son. The game she has in her hand is "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," which if you don't know, is rated "M" for mature and has pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, lots of blood, lots of violence, and if you really know what you're doing, you can get one of the prostitutes to get in your car and, well, you know. So, James says to the lady, "You do know that this is rated "M" for mature, right?" The lady replies, "Really? Why?" James tells her about the pimps and hos and all the rest. She then says, in all seriousness, "So, do you think my 8 year old son is old enough to play this?" James's jaw drops. He then says, "I don't think that I'm old enough to play this." 7/02/03 -- Well, the Blockbuster gods have decided that they are going to close the cool-ass little store I work in (that has no customers and no product and no stress) and move us to the other end of the shopping center and open up a regular sized store (with lots of customers, lots of product, and, well, it's a video store. How much stress could there be? Well, more than before.) We open on July 4th, so the fun will be over soon. Boo hoo. 1/14/04 -- Last night, a former co-worker of mine, and his son, were murdered. Bill Venable, and his son, Bill Jr. were at their home when a home invader busted in to try and rob them I guess. Bill, being a big guy and a Coach for the Tucker High School football team, tried to stop the guy from coming into his house. Bill Jr. heard his dad struggling with the guy and came to help. The guy shot and killed both of them and ran. Luckily, the police found the guy. They sent to police dog to tackle him. He shot the police dog, so the officers shot him and killed him. I worked with Bill back in 1995 through 1996 at my old Blockbuster. It was kind of an after school job for him so he could make some extra money. He was a real nice guy and didn't deserve this. You could tell his students liked him because they would sometimes come in the store just to say hi. Click here or here if you would like to read an article about the murder. Here are a couple of pictures:
2/07/04 -- A crazy drunk lady was in the store looking for movies about an hour before closing on a Saturday night. She wandered around the store until closing time, and she still didn't seem like she was at all ready to leave. Terah walked up to her and said, "We do close at midnight, and it's now 12:05, so if you could quickly pick out the movies you're going to rent and bring them to the front, it would be appreciated." She mumbles something and continues to wander the store. She then walks up to a sign that we had that said "Cheaper By The Dozen -- 4/6," meaning that Cheaper By The Dozen was going to be released on 4/6. Drunk lady said to me, "Cheaper By The Dozen. When does that come out?" I pointed to the sign and said, "April 6th." She says, "Tomorrow?" I said, "No. Two months from now." Duh. She finally stumbled her way to the register and puts her movies down and says, "I don't have my card." Great. "I'm on blank's account." I pull up blank's account, and she is not listed as an authorized user. I tell her this, and she tells me that it's her husband's account, so therefore, I should just go ahead and rent to her. "No." "Why not?" "I can't rent to you if you're not on the account." It's now 12:15, and I'm arguing with a drunk lady (which is always entertaining, but never productive.) She then says, "I'll just use my own account." I'm wondering why she didn't just do this in the first place. She pulls out her card, I scan it, and I tell her there is a $25.38 late fee that has gone to collections that must be paid before any further items could be rented. This angered her even more. She argued that she didn't have enough money to both rent and pay the late fee. She ended up paying the late fee and not renting the movies. She threw her money at us and cursed at us, and then left. We locked the door behind her. She walks out to her car, and she then realizes that she has locked her keys in her car. She's not coming back in the store to use the phone because (#1) She just cussed me out and was a total bitch, and (#2) we're not allowed to unlock the door and let someone in after the store is closed. She gets on her cell phone and starts screaming at someone on the other end to come and bring her some car keys. She continues to cuss that person out while we sit in the store and listen (and laugh). Ah, drunk people. You gotta love 'em. 3/23/04 -- Celebrity alert!!!!! I was working the other night when I guy came up to my register. I looked at him and thought to myself, "Wow. This guy really looks like Usher." He gave me his movies. I scanned his card, but the name "Usher" was nowhere on the account. Anyway, I said something to him, and he spoke back, and I thought, "Wow. This guy even sounds like Usher. Can it be?" Don't worry. I played it cool. I didn't want to be like every other person in the world and say, "Oh my god! You're Usher!" During the whole transaction, I wasn't completely sure. He looked and sounded like him, but shouldn't he be a busy guy with his new album coming out and all? I know that his mom lives in the area, but still. So, I gave him his movies and he started to walk out the door. I noticed that he left his keys on the counter. I said, "Oh, you forgot your keys." He spun around to come back to the counter, and that's when I saw the biggest bling bling cross necklace I've ever seen come swinging out from around his neck. I had just seen that cross on VH1 the day before. They were talking about how pop stars spend tons of money on the bling, and they said that Usher had that cross specially made for him. Now, I'm sure. He said thanks for the keys and left. Yes! Now I've beat my sister in the famous customer department. She works at the Borders in Atlanta, and she's always getting famous customers (Vern from "Trading Spaces", Darryl Hammond from SNL, Clark Howard). I work in the suburbs, so I don't get to see all the cool people. Well, I did rent movies to one of the Ying Yang Twins, but that isn't as big as Usher. Ha ha. I beat you Tracy. By the way, if you think the customers that I get are weird, Tracy has some great stories from Borders. In fact, every person that I've ever known that has worked in a book store has way cooler stories than me. Oh, and I knew someone that worked at the Double Tree Hotel. Oh my god! Hotel customers are crazy! If anyone out there knows of any web sites similar to mine about book stores or hotel employees, please let me know. 4/11/04 -- I wasn't at work to witness this one. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I came into work this morning and I went into the back room to count the money. I see a post-it note on the table with Michele's handwriting that has some kind of confirmation number on it from the company that cleans our carpets. It said, "Emergency cleaning - blood stains." I think that this is strange, but I go on about my business. Then, I notice a plastic Blockbuster bag with a movie in it. This bag also had a post-it note on it that said, "Do not open." I'm thinking, "What is going on here." Me, being the curious person that I am, picked up the bag. I wasn't going to open it. I just wanted to look thought the plastic to see if I could read though it to see what movie it was. I read Dracula's Curse, and right after, I notice that the movie case is covered in blood. Ewwww! What the hell happened here? Later in the day, Melanie came into work. She worked last night. I said, "Did something happen here last night?" She laughs and says, "Yeah, how did you know?" I tell her about the notes about the blood. Here is the story: Tyler B. was walking around the store last night helping customers when he noticed a man trying to open a DVD case. This happens quite often, not because they're trying to steal the movie inside, but because they're stupid and they don't know that the movie case has a lock on it. At closer inspection of this customer, Tyler notices that his hand is bleeding. He moves away from the guy and goes to the front to tell Michele. It was really busy in the store, and Michele and Melanie had a lot of customers at the registers. Tyler tells Michele about bleeding man. Michele, thinking that it's probably just a trickle of blood, and being too busy to care, tell Tyler to just keep an eye on the guy. Tyler walks back over to where the guy was before, but he is gone. He looks around to find the guy standing in between the comedy and drama sections with blood all over his face, blood all over his shirt, blood all over his hands, and blood all over the floor. The guy stumbles through the store looking for his wife, leaving a trail of blood wherever he goes. He finds his wife at the register and then asks Michele if she would unlock the bathroom for him. She does, and about 5 minutes later, bleeding man comes out with toilet paper wrapped around his hand and says, "Uh, I had a nose bleed." If you had a nose bleed, why do you have toilet paper wrapped around your hand, Einstein? Now, there's blood all over the bathroom as well. That's why they had to call the carpet cleaners for the emergency service. And the funniest part is, after bleeding man and his wife left, Michele and Melanie realized that his wife was crazy drunk lady from two months earlier. Small world. Later on, they found the case for the movie Dracula's Curse broken into (and covered in blood) with the disc missing. We assume that bleeding man broke the case and then sliced his hand with the broken plastic. Michele came in today to call the police and file a report, since we know who did it. They did rent movies. We got their name off of their account. Dumbass criminals. 4/15/04 -- I received a call today from a lady that sounded slightly intoxicated. She said, "Were you working Saturday night?" I said, "No." She said, "I don't know if you're aware of this, but there was a man in your store on Saturday by the name of blank who stole a movie from you. It's called Dracula's Curse. He's a kleptomaniac and he needs to be stopped." I can't believe that I am talking to crazy drunk lady and that she is turning in her own husband. She continued to say, "He does this everywhere he goes. He has a real problem. You need to call the police." At this point, I figure the two of them have got into some kind of fight, and she's trying to get him back by turning him in to Blockbuster. She says, "And he bled all over you're store. He was trying to cut the movie case open with his knife, and he cut his hand open with it. Do you know about this?" I didn't want her to know that we had been talking about her and her husband (all week), so I just said, "No. I wasn't aware of this." I told her to call Michele tomorrow. She's the store manager. She was there when it happened. She's the one you need to talk to. Sorry Michele. Then, later on, a woman walked in the store with her daughter (about 13 years old). About 5 seconds later, an 8 year old storms in and runs up to the lady and screams histerically, "I told you to get out of this stupid store! I hate you! Get out of this stupid store!" She then knocks some movies off the shelf and storms back out. What a little psycho! The lady picks up the movies and queitly says, "Sorry," and continues to look for a movie to rent. She isn't disturbed at all by what just happened. About a minute goes by, and the girl comes back in the store, screaming and crying, "I thought I told you to get out of this stupid store! Get out of here!" and once again knocks over some movies and runs out of the store. Now I'm starting to get mad, and Melanie, well, she doesn't take crap from anyone. She said to me, "I dare her to come back in here and act like that again." At this point, I don't know where the little girl is, nor do I care. As long as she is not in the store, I am a happy person. The mother asks her older daughter to go outside to see where her sister went. She looks outside, comes back in and says, "She's in the car." These two are acting like this is a regular thing. If so, I feel for them. The woman comes up to the counter and hands me her movies when demon child comes running back in the store. "Get out of this stupid store! I hate you! I hate you! Get out of this stupid store!" She then hits her mom (!) and lays on the floor. Her head is now spinning in circles and she's projectile vomiting pea soup, but the mom dosen't care. (OK, I exaggerated a bit there.) Melanie has now had it, walks around the counter, looks at the girl and says, "Get up off the floor! You should be ashamed of yourself, hitting your mother. Now stand up and act right!" The girl stands up and doesn't say another word throughout the rest of her time in the store. Neither does her mom. I figured she would get mad at Melanie, but she didn't say a thing. The mom and both of her daughters quietly walked out of the store and to their car. I've never seen anything quite like it. I told Melanie that she is my hero. 4/18/04 -- Crazy drunk lady called back today and said, "I don't know if you're aware of this, but there was a man in your store on Saturday by the name of blank who stole a movie from you. It's called Dracula's Curse. He's a kleptomaniac and he needs to be stopped." I said, "I know. I talked to you on Thursday, and I told you to call back on Friday or Saturday night to talk to Michele." (This is now Sunday.) "You need to call the police. He needs to be stopped." I told her once again that she would have to talk to Michele. I told her that I would be happy to take down her name and phone # and have Michele call her back. She said, "Oh, uh, no. That's OK," and she hung up. Of course she's not going to give me her name because she doesn't want her husband to know that his own wife turned him in. This lady is starting to get on my last nerve. 4/24/04 -- I think I'm turning evil. Today, a lady was in the store with yet another screaming child. This one wasn't quite as bad as the last one, but still bad. He was screaming and laying in the floor crying because his mom wouldn't buy him a $22 toy. She tries to ignore his cries, but now everyone in the store is staring at her and the kid. She finally picks up the kid and leaves the store, with his screams getting louder and louder as the distance between him and the toy becomes longer and longer. All the customers start talking about the kid after the lady left. I said to Melanie, jokingly, "Man. If I was that lady, and I had to listen to that kid scream like that all the time, I think I would commit suicide...and as punishment, I'd make that kid watch." OK. I found this funny, but I do usually laugh at inappropriate things, like the time I saw an annoying little kid run head on into a plate glass window. That was the best! Anyway, I think my co-workers think I'm evil after that comment. Maybe I am. 5/10/04 -- My co-worker James M., a.k.a. G.I. James, is fighting over in Iraq right now. He was in the reserves, and in November, he had to go. Just wanted to say I hope you get to come back home soon, James. We miss ya! Here's a picture of him:
5/14/04 -- Why have I been missing all the good stuff lately? This has got to be one of the most interesting things I've put on this page. My co-worker Shawn was working last night when he went out the back door to take the trash out to the dumpster. He's outside, and he hears a female moan. Yes, one of those kinds of moans. He walks around the corner of the building to see what is going on, and there is a girl bent over with her hands against the wall, and her boyfriend with his pants around his ankles giving it to her from behind. Oh my god. Shawn almost starts busting out laughing, so he quickly turns around and runs back into the store. He tells Jason (another one of my co-workers), "Oh my god! People are fucking behind the store!" Jason doesn't believe him, so he went outside to see for himself. About 10 minutes later, he comes back inside. Ewww. "Yeah, they're screwing alright." A customer came in the store right after Jason came back inside. Shawn told the customer what was going on and told him to go drive back behind the shopping center. The guy said OK! So, the customer jumped in his truck, turned off the headlights, and took off behind the shopping center. Shawn and Jason waited a couple of minutes and went outside to check. Everyone was gone. Too bad. I would have paid to see the looks on their faces. Let this be a lesson to everyone: If you're going to screw in public, don't do it behind a store that is still open!!! Wait until we close, and then screw all ya want. No one wants to see that. Well, maybe Jason. :-) 5/25/04 -- For those of you who are asking if G.I. James is OK over there in Iraq, he is doing fine. I think he might actually spend more time on the internet over there than he does fighting. :-) 5/27/04 -- Last night, this girl came in and asked if we had the movie Airheads for sale. Tyler B told her that we didn't. She then asked, "Would Hollywood Video have it?" Considering that we don't work at Hollywood Video, I'm going to say that we can't answer that. Duh! Oh, and the other day, I left the store to get lunch. I was at the Chinese restaurant in the same shopping center that I work in, waiting on my sweet and sour chicken, when this other lady waiting for her food strikes up a conversation with me. She sees me in my Blockbuster uniform, and decides to start asking me about all the new movies and which ones are good. By the way, don't do this. You don't want someone to bother you about work when you're not at work, so don't do it to us, OK? Anyway, back to the story: She then asked me if we had any job openings for her daughter, and while she was asking me this, SHE WAS PICKING HER NOSE!!!!!!!!! NASTY!! Well, if your daughter picks her nose in public like her mother does, then no, we don't have any job openings for her. I suddenly wasn't hungry for my sweet and sour chicken anymore. 6/10/04 -- Shawn said that the other night, the phone rang at work. He answered it, and the person on the other end said, "You fucking pig!" and then hung up. Whatever. 6/17/04 -- I meant to mention this earlier. If you live in the Atlanta area and listen to 99X, in the past couple of months, you may have heard a person call in on their station named Rose. She's from New York. She called in a couple months ago to win Braves vs. Yankees tickets. She won them, and Crash and Axel talked to her for a while on the air. They thought she was funny, so they kept re-playing the conversation, and then they used her on the morning show a couple of times. Anyway, she's one of our favorite customers. I heard her talking on the radio, and I said, "Hey, I know that lady. That's Rose!" The next time she came in to rent movies, I asked if that was her on the radio. She said that I was the only person that recognized her voice and asked her that. I don't know what I'm going to do with all these celebrities we keep getting in the store. ;-) 6/18/04 -- Shawn's getting all the crazy people lately. We close at midnight, so Shawn locked the doors AT MIDNIGHT. About a minute later, some guy comes up and starts banging on the doors. "Let me in! You closed early!" Shawn said, "No, we closed on time." The guy yelled, "Let me in damn it! I want a movie!" Shawn replied, "I'm not allowed to unlock the doors after we close for security reasons. Sorry." Shawn walked away, and this made the guy get even more mad. He started pounding his fist on the glass at approximately a 2 pounds per second beat. He wouldn't stop. Tyler picked up his cell phone and dialed 911. The guy saw him on the phone and said, "Go ahead! Call the police! I don't care!" He kept pointing his finger at the glass saying, "You will let me in!" Oh, OK. Since you're being so reasonable, of course we'll let you in. What's wrong with people. Then he started yelling (at one word per fist pound) "They - closed - the - store - early - . - They're - gonna - let - me - in." There were more words to the song, but I forget them at the moment. Finally the police showed up and told the guy to get lost. He told the cops that he wasn't going to leave until he got the district manager's name and phone number. The cop told Shawn, "Just give this asshole the phone number so he'll leave." I wish they would have arrested him for something. I don't know. Disorderly conduct. Being a dick. Isn't there a law against that? There should be. 7/03/04 -- A customer asked Tyler, "What is Cold Mountain?" Tyler said, "I haven't seen it, but it's supposed to be a Civil War epic." The girl replied, "Oh, you mean like Titanic?" Tyler stared at the girl for a couple of seconds and said, "Yeah, EXACTLY like Titanic." They get dumber and dumber as the days go by. 7/06/04 -- A lady and her seven year old daughter came in the store to return a previously viewed tape that they had bought. The movie was called House of 1000 Corpses. I asked her, "Is there something wrong with the tape?" She said, "No. I'm returning it because this movie just isn't for children." Oh my god. The title of the movie is House of 1000 Freaking Corpses and you gave it to a seven year old?! You're a stupid bitch. Here's what the cover of the movie looks like.
7/13/04 -- A woman, a man, and their son (about 13 years old) came in today. They picked out 3 movies and brought them to my register. I noticed that the son has about $100 in twenties in his hands. Why a 13 year old boy needs to have that much money in his pockets is something I don't understand, but back to the story. The father has a $100 bill in his hand. The wife asks the son if he will make change for his father so that he can give me a smaller bill than $100. The son said, "No." How nice. Then, the mother said, "That's OK. This lady will make change for us." I said, "Uh, actually, I can't." She said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I don't have change for $100 right now. Let me make sure." At that point, I opened my register and said, "No, I don't have change right now." She said, "You're kidding, right?!" I said, "No. I don't have change at the moment. We are required to do cash drops so that we don't have too much cash in the register just in case we're robbed. Sorry." She said, "This is ridiculous! We're not renting these movies. She has change; she just doesn't want to give it to us!" Oh my god! "No, I promise you, it's nothing against you. I just don't have change right now. I'm sorry." "We aren't coming back here again!" At this point, I looked at Travis (my co-worker), and he looked at me. I probably had a look on my face like, "What the hell just happened here?" The lady, who was forcing her family to walk out the door at this time, turned around and said, "And you can stop laughing about this!!!" I said, "I'm not laughing!" "Yes you are! That's not very professional!" I swear I wasn't laughing. I was too pissed off at her to laugh. She said, "It's rude for you to be laughing at me!" I said, "I'm not laughing, and I don't have change for $100!" I was losing my patience at this point. She left, and then about 10 seconds later, she came right back in, "I want the 1-800 number for Blockbuster! This is ridiculous! I've never been treated like this before! We've been customers here for a long time and you're telling me that you don't have change for $100?!?!" I gave her the district manager's number. I have never had anyone get mad because we don't have change for $100. Most people understand that. And the fact that she thought it was something personal! No, I have change. I just don't want you to have it. Her son won't give her change, and she doesn't get mad at him! Whatever. I hope she eats some bad meat for dinner! 7/29/04 -- A woman called tonight and said, "I rented Hellboy and it was due back today at noon, but I can't get it out of my VCR. I've been trying all day to get it out. I don't know what to do. If I bring it up there tomorrow morning, can someone there try to get it out for me?" I said, "The store manager will be here tomorrow. I'll put a comment on your account to not charge you for the late fees, and he might be able to get it out." She said thanks, but then she said, "It would be nice if my husband could help me get this movie out, but he's sitting in prison right now!" Too much information to be sharing with a stranger! She added, "If he didn't start smoking crack and fucking up his life and getting in fights with people, maybe he wouldn't be in prison right now! Oh well, who needs him anyway!" Then she started to laugh. I wouldn't be laughing if I were her, but different strokes for different folks. I told her I was sorry about her husband's unfortunate incarceration and said goodbye. Another interesting day in the world of Blockbuster. 8/05/04 -- This woman came up to my register and rented 3 movies. Her total came to $12.69. She handed me $22.11. I said, "Uh, your total is $12.69. You gave me $22.11." She said, "Oh" and then took back the money. She then stared at the money for a second, and then said, "Yeah, that's what I meant to give you." She then handed the money back to me. This meant that her change was $9.42. This means that I gave her back both $1 bills that she gave me and the dime and the penny that she handed me. I purposely left those sitting on the counter next to my register while I got the rest of her change so that maybe she would notice how dumb she was. Instead, when I put all of her change together and handed it to her, she said, "Ah, now I have change." (She was talking about the coins.) Dumbass. I have a B.S. in Mathematics, so it boggles my mind when people can't do simple addition and subtraction. The sad part is, she was wearing her McDonald's uniform, so that means that she probably takes money from and gives change to people all the damn day. You're not helping the stereotype that girls aren't good at math. Thanks a lot. 8/27/04 -- About two weeks ago, a customer asked what time we closed. I said midnight. He asked if we would let him in after closing. I told him that for security reasons, we can't open the doors after we are closed and the doors are locked. He then asked if we would stay open late 5 or 6 minutes for him. I told him no. He hung up. At about 12:15 (hey, that's longer than 5 or 6 minutes), he walks up to the doors and pulls on them (even though the lights are off). Travis and I were standing in a part of the store where he couldn't see us, so we just sat back and watched. He looked through the window like he would find someone and they would let him in (even though Travis and I told him that we could not re-open the store after closing). Then, he walked over to the drop box and opened and closed the metal drop box door as if it were a door knocker. We just laughed. He finally got so pissed off that he got back in his car and sped off (while squealing his tires). Oooh. What a bad-ass. I'm scared now! 8/31/04 -- Today is the day I have dreaded for months now. Today is the day that Passion of the Christ was released on video. [sigh] People were coming into the store and buying two and three copies at a time! What's wrong with you people? I will admit, I am not exactly the most religious person you will meet. I don't mind if you believe in a god, or two gods, or even some magic beans. I do mind if you try to push your god into my life. I believe in being a good person and I try to live my life that way. I obey the basic rules of any religion: don't steal, don't kill, treat others the way you want to be treated, yada yada yada. I don't need someone (or a church) to try to scare me into doing the right thing by telling me that I'm going to hell if I don't do the right thing. Someone, after reading this web page and seeing my comments on the Atlanta Church of Christ, and seeing my wreck pictures, e-mailed me and said, "I saw what you said about God and church. After living through your wreck, do you believe in God more?" Did my wreck make me believe in God? It made me believe in seatbelts, but not necessarily God. Is there a god? I don't know. Maybe there is. Maybe there isn't. That's for me to decide for myself, not for others to decide for me. So, anyway, I knew that today would be a long day of listening to people tell me, "Oh, this is such a great movie. You know, Jesus died for us and endured so much pain..." Yeah, I get it. You don't have to tell me. I've heard the story hundreds of times. But, to my surprise, I didn't hear as much of that as I expected. When I did hear it, I did my best to smile and nod as customers told me how great Mel Gibson was for making this movie and how great Jesus is and how this movie made them believe in God even more. I lost my patience when this lady (a somewhat regular customer that gets on my nerves anyway) came in to rent the movie. She said, "Oh, this is such a great movie. Have you seen it?" I said, "No, I haven't." She said, "Why? Aren't you Christain?" That's a pretty fucking rude thing to ask a total stranger! I replied, "I just don't want to watch someone get beat up for two hours. I don't find that entertaining!" She said, "Oh," and took her movie and left. I probably pissed her off, but I don't really care. She shouldn't say ignorant rude-ass shit to people she doesn't really know! 9/06/04 -- This man walked up to me and said he was looking for a movie. I asked him what the title was. He said he didn't know the exact title, but it was a newer movie with "Mippissippi" in the title. Yes, he said "Mippissippi." He said it three times. Go ahead. Say it out loud and try not to laugh. 9/07/04 -- These two customers walked up to Samantha's register and they mentioned that they didn't understand the big hype about The Passion of the Christ. Yes! My kind of people. Samantha said to the customers, "It's a really sad movie." I replied, "Yeah, I heard he dies at the end." Luckily, the customers got my sense of humor and weren't offended. If I wasn't going to hell before, I definitely am now after making that comment! 10/11/04 -- A man came in and asked Angie if we had a movie called Second-hand Stan. Angie kind of looked at him funny and said, "I've never heard of that one, but I'll look it up." Of course, there was no listing for it in the computer. She asked if he was sure that was the title of the movie, and he said that he was pretty sure. He said that he would check with his friend and come back some other time. He came in the next day and said to Angie, "Hey, I have the correct title of that movie now. It's called Cool Hand Luke." You, sir, have now won the award for the worst butchering of a movie title in history! Congrats! 11/02/04 -- Since today is election day, I thought I would talk about all the customers that got so pissed off about Fahrenheit 9/11. First, there was the lady that came in the day that it was released. She was a regular customer up until this day. She was looking around the store for something to rent when she came across Fahrenheit 9/11. We had probably 70 copies on the shelf. She rushed up to the front counter and said to Angie, "Why on earth do you have 200 copies of Fahrenheit 9/11 and only 2 copies of D.C. 9/11?" For those of you who don't know, D.C. 9/11 is a made for TV movie that does not bash Bush that no one watched when it was on TV, so pretty much no one was going to rent it either. Angie said, "Well, one is much more popular than the other. Anyway, I don't order the movies. Corporate decides what each store gets." The lady said, "Well, I would like to make a complaint!" Angie told her to feel free to call the corporate headquarters. Then the lady said, "I'm going to boycott your store and I'm going to picket outside! I'm going to set up a table infront of your store and tell your customers what I think!" Angie said, "Go ahead." She never did picket us, but I also never did see her come back and rent either. Usually when someone says, "I'm never renting here again!" they're back within a week. Oh well, she won't be missed. Then a couple of weekends ago, a man came in looking to rent FahrenHYPE 9/11, which is a documentary about Fahrenheit 9/11 claiming that it's a bunch of lies and that Michael Moore made up half the stuff in his movie. We only have one copy of this movie. Tyler told him that it was checked out. The man asked, "Why do you only have one copy of the movie? I'm sure that plenty of people want to rent it." Tyler said, "Actually, you're the first person to ask for it." Then the man went on and on about Michael Moore and how he hates him, blah, blah, blah. He said that FahrenHYPE 9/11 would surely be a better film. Tyler said, "I don't exactly see how you can make a documentary about a documentary." At this point, the man's wife just shook her head back and forth as if she were saying, "Oh, you shouldn't have said that." The man gave Tyler the evilest look I've ever seen and then walked away. On his way out the door, he mumbled something about Blockbuster being nothing but "a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals." Whatever. Don't get your panties in such a wad about a MOVIE! IT'S JUST A MOVIE! GET A GRIP! Why are people taking this movie so freaking seriously? I personally like Michael Moore. I'm a fan of his work, all the way back to his "TV Nation" days on FOX. Am I a Democrat? No. Am I a Rebuplican? No. I concider myself to be a happy medium. If you don't like Michael Moore, don't watch his stuff and keep your mouth shut. If you do like Michael Moore, what his movies and keep your mouth shut. Once again, it's just a movie. 1/05/05 -- For some reason, some customers think that because they picked out a bad movie, they should get some sort of credit. I've never understood this. Today, a woman asked Tyler, "OK, if I rent this movie and I don't like it, what are you going to give me?" Without hesitation, Tyler replied, "My condolences." He's so funny. 1/20/05 -- This past weekend, an older woman (in her sixties) was in the store for quite some time. She told Dana (the store manager) that she was waiting for someone. A couple of hours went by, and she was still there. She told Dana that she wasn't feeling well and asked if she could use the restroom. Dana unlocked the restroom door and let her in. About 30 minutes later, Dana realized that she never did see the lady leave the bathroom. She started to get worried. She told Tyler that he had to unlock the bathroom door to see if the lady was still in there. Tyler didn't want to for fear that he would find a dead body. He unlocked the door, and the lady was passed out on the floor. Dana called 911 and the paramedics showed up. The lady eventually woke up. The paramedics noticed that the lady had A LOT of prescription pill bottles in her purse for schizophrenia. When the paramedics asked her who she was, she told them that she was the ex-wife of a famous Atlanta preacher (I forget his name), and that she was currently engaged to be married to Donald Trump. I can't believe I wasn't there for this one. I always miss the good stuff.
