Renting An Experience

It saddens me to think that my child will never share certain experiences that have a treasured place in the pit of my heart. What I am referring to is the experience that is: renting a movie.

Yes, I understand there are still Blockbusters now, but the ambiance has been mitigated to substandard event. I would much rather entertain the thought of visiting a local box of red or my handy dandy Netflix. Still, if I were to try and provide them with a humdrum Blockbuster memory, I would need to find a woman willing and able to release my offspring.

I may be getting ahead of myself…What if I am the only one who felt this way about the movie renting experience?

I remember it clearly.

It was like walking into a wonderland. Shelves upon shelves of entertainment were within my reach. Every conceivable cartoon was placed in a 7.5×4.2×1 inch VHS container of magic. I knew just where my section was too. I would run to it and rummage through the various films. What did I want to watch today? Little Nemo, Ninja Turtles, Mario Bros, The Brave Little Toaster? Yeah, I had seen all of them before, but I liked them. I’d flip over the demo box that was displayed for every movie scratching at its Styrofoam innards as I gazed upon the pictures trying to draw a conclusion as to what the film was about.

Once I had made my decision I would snatch the actual copy of the film and run off to the games section. These were the days of cheap game rentals and tons of games. I remember Sega having a game for almost every movie ever made. I also remember finding out that games based on movies sucked. One of my favorite rentals as a child was a game for my Sega Genesis called ToeJam & Earl. If I were feeling lucky I would try to convince my parents to allow me one movie and one game.

Regardless of my success rate, I was still excited as we lined up to purchase our rentals. Candy and soda pop lined the shelving near the counter. There were Milk Duds, Butterfingers, Dots, Sno-Caps (I never cared for Sno-Caps, but they have been heavily associated with my video rental expeditions), and more. I never did buy candy from Blockbuster, but it served as a reminder that I was about to take part in a cinematic adventure. Yes, those were the times…

All of that has disappeared now. VHS tapes are a thing of the past. Who still uses them? Nobody. Well, there are those ancient teachers who have adopted the No Technology Left Behind Act.

I am not here to hate on VHS tapes. Actually it is quite the opposite. I miss having that ability to skip over anything I did not want to watch. That’s right DVDs, I’m calling you out on this. I do not want to read your copyright infringement laws that are put in size six font and placed on the screen for approximately seven seconds. We are Americans, we don’t read the small print. And for all its shortcomings, VHS tapes understood that. Yes, you may have had to spend six minutes rewinding the film to reach that part, but the being able to fast forward through the seven to ten seconds of warnings was worth it.

No closure.