A man with an obvious drinking habit argues with the clerk over late fees he thinks unreasonable. The clerk – clearly flustered as the man tries to make her understand that she is wrong by raising his voice and attempting to rally other patrons to his cause – maintains vigilance over the payment of the fees. People step away and line up at another clerk's station. The man's daughter – maybe twelve or thirteen – glares sheepishly at the floor, her face burning with embarrassment. She just wanted to see a movie.
Two women in their mid forties: girls night out. One is visiting from a nearby state and is amazed by the selection available in this video store. They talk and laugh loudly in an effort to display to anyone who might notice that they are still as vibrant and outgoing as they were at eighteen. They rent several movies starring Richard Gere.
A group of teenage boys peruse the video game selection. Each wears a baseball cap placed backwards or crooked, a large coat bearing the gaudy graphics of a different sports team and pencil thin facial hair in various configurations. The phrases "da shiznit" and "wack" and "da bomb" stumble awkwardly out of their mouths as they discuss the merits of Game Cube, XBox and Playstation 2 (da shiznit, wack and da bomb, respectively) while trying to maintain the illusion that Snoop Dogg is their homie. Fo' shizzle.
Me: standing in a line whose length is only equalled by those at the DMV. Frustrated by having to rent movies on VHS because the DVD player is somehow not compatible with the upstairs TV. The solution to this, of course, was to move the downstairs TV – which had no problems with the DVD player – upstairs. Having carefully transported the TV and set everything up, five minutes into "Amelie" the screen went black, light smoke poured out and the deathly scent of burning plastic filled the air. So back to VHS.
As I stand in the line amidst the static, that disco tune by the Rolling Stones tramples painfully through my head like the screech of a fire alarm. Doo doot – doo doo – doo doo doo...