I am Afraid of My Own Life

Sunday night, I went to return a movie to the Red Box down at the 7-11. It's a wonderful thing, isn't it? Rent movie, watch movie, return movie, all for one dollar plus sales tax! (By the way, why is there sales tax on something that wasn't sold? This irks me greatly.)

I pulled up to the Red Box, and waited. And waited. A lovely young couple was renting several movies. They did not, however, know what they were going to rent in advance. So they flipped through the entire listing. Several times. I understand why they would do that. I mean, it's not as though Red Box has a website you can browse before leaving your home. It's also not as though the Red Box has a 6-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide display telling you which movies are available in it.
So, as they are making their choices, I stand there, far enough out of the way that it doesn't look like I'm impatient (I am) and yet close enough that it should be obvious I'm in line. I hold my little square plastic container with the dvd of the Sci Fi Channel's Alice in it, my arms crossed, the case tapping against my elbow. Up walks another person. Does he acknowledge me when I say "hello," as a gentle way of saying, "The line starts here, bub," or stand behind me? Of course not. He glares at me and steps between me and the lovely couple, who turn to him and start talking about the movie 2012.
The lovely couple start talking about how horrible it was that the end of the world was coming and the government just let everybody die. I refrained from asking what the government was supposed to do if the planet was falling apart literally. (I don't know if that happens in the movie. I didn't watch it.) The glaring gentleman started talking about Nostradamus and how he also predicted the world would end in December of 2012, and how Nostradamus predicted the rise of Hitler and the election of President Obama.
The young male part of the happy couple nods seriously, and the young lady says that it doesn't matter, because the Chinese are so much more advanced than us, they have "holographic phones and shit" and if the world did decide to end, then the Chinese would save us.
It was at this point that my brain really started to hurt. I had to say something. "Those holographic phones are prototypes coming out of Japan, not China. China's economy is built primarily on manufacturing rather than innovation," says Cranky.
The young lady looked at me and responded, "Whatever, Japan then. Japan can save us."
I laughed, just a little disbelieving bark of surprised laughter. Of course, that didn't go over very well. The young gentleman decided to go inside and buy something, and the young lady tried to swipe her card through the machine.
Swipe, nothing happens. Swipe, again nothing. Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. EIGHT TIMES she swiped the card (I counted!) before she looked at her card, looked at the drawing, giggled, and flipped her card over.

By this time her gentleman friend had returned from the 7-11's interior, and they collected their movies from the machine. Then they climbed into the 2-tons of metal and fiberglass they are allowed to careen around the streets in, and drove off. To me, that is the most terrifying part of this story, that these people would be allowed to drive, to vote, and to breed. Ok, the breeding doesn't bother me quite so much, as we will always need push-broom pilots and grocery baggers. But for heaven's sake, don't let them near a voting booth or a steering wheel!

My trip to return Alice took me twenty minutes. I live one minute from the Red Box, and it took less than fifteen seconds to return the movie.