Witz DOESN'T Pick: Video Store A-Holes

Ok, for today's post, I'm gonna drop some a historical narrative from my past. I was thinking about this recently and realized just how ridiculous it actually was. Check it out:

Many moons ago, when I was twelve or thirteen years old, my friend (we'll call him The ATX) The ATX and I were in Maine on vacation with my family. For those who don't know, Maine is such a boring and uninteresting place to take a vacation that they actually nicknamed the state Vacationland. That's called overselling, and it's a sure sign that something isn't right.

So after a day or two on the beach, realizing that no matter how old you are as a kid (my family went from when I was five until I was eighteen), there will never be anyone there your age to hangout with, you get bored. The one time we found some people to hangout with, one girl had a lazy eye and the other was unattractive with a stalker like obsession with The ATX. Oh yeah, and get this-- so the lazy-eyed girl invites us to hangout at her family's house, "just as friends." Since we only are looking for friends (at least from a lazy-eyed girl and her portly companion) we said of course. So I'M sitting on a bed while we all talk about music when the Lazy Eyed Girl climbs only the bed, SITS down so my hand is under her leg, and then says accusingly, "I SAID we're just looking for FRIENDS!" Shocked and confused (we should have tried that with Iraq instead of Shock & Awe-- we'd tell them they could hangout in their country and it was all good, then we could have suddenly shown up and arrested Saddam and shouted accusingly, "YOU CAN'T RULE HERE ANYMORE!"-- actually, that sounds A LOT like what we did historically-- eesh), I slowly moved away from her and shot The ATX a quizzical look. Neither one of us knew what was going on, so we sat rigidly and listened to Marcy's Playground. We should have known something was up-- nobody bought the whole Marcy's Playground CD, they taped Sex & Candy off the radio and were content.

Anyway, after all this, we were bored, and that led to us going to the local video store slash souvenir shop to rent a movie. So we're poking around, browsing, wondering if we want to see Lethal Weapon again or maybe Highlander, when my friend The ATX picks up Silence of the Lambs.

"What about this?" he asks, showing me the box.
"Nah, I heard it's not that good," I say, even though that wasn't the case at all, because what I actually had heard was that it was scary shit and I really didn't want to watch a scary movie and get all freaked out while in a vacation home with noises in the woods.
"Ok," he says and puts it back on the shelf. Until--

"Actually, it's fantastic," snaps a voice, loud and intrusive and snotty and pretentious.

We looked up. Some, like, thirty-eight year old guy who was looking at movies nearby had jumped in on our conversation to call me out on not wanting to see Silence of the Lambs. Dude, I'm like freakin' twelve years old! "Actually, it's fantastic!" Are you kidding me? Before this guy spoke up, we were trying to decide between Heavyweights and Happy Gilmore-- that's about where we were at. I don't think my pre-teen lie needed to be housed by this guy, thus exposing me for the scared adolescent that I was.

In retrospect it's even more baffling that somebody would do that. Forget the fact that they overheard a conversation and actually had to LOOK to see what move we were talking about, but to then feel the need to derisively correct these two youths about what they heard about a movie is insane! I mean, I've overheard people my age pickup moves like The Wedding Crashers or The Big Lebowski and say, "I didn't think that was very funny," or, "What about this, I heard it was alright," and yet somehow I restrain myself from cutting in with, "Actually, it's fucking hilarious." I heard a woman walk by my cubicle yesterday and say, "I stopped watching Superbad halfway through, it was just too much for me and I didn't like the humor," and ya know what? I didn't stand up and inform her, "Actually, Superbad's humor is fantastic. You are the idiot in the equation!" because as a HUMAN BEING, I know when not to say stuff like that. "Hey kids with less life experience than me-- I'm cooler than you! My movie taste is impeccable! Get over me, bitches!" Shocking.

In the end, I didn't exactly know what to do. Saying things like, "I heard it's not very good," about a movie you don't want to see was the type of lie you were supposed to get away with. Like saying you'd seen a movie you hadn't so that people would like you or think you were cool, even if they were already your friends. "What was your favorite part?" they'd ask. "I liked all of it," you'd reply, or better yet, "I dunno, what was yours?" and then they'd say, "The part where the helicopter blew up," and then you'd say, "Oh yeah! That part was awesome!" and you were better friends for it. You weren't supposed to get called on the lie, especially by a much older person. In response to the guy I think my face reddened quite a bit, and I mumbled an, "Oh," for his approval, but we put the movie back. I don't remember what we ended up with, but it wasn't Silence of the Lambs. At the end of the day, everything was fine, but I guess these are the things we remember in life.

"This post sucks!"
"Actually, it's fantastic",
Witz