Requiem for a Video Store
Oct. 13th, 2006 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thehefnerThe location of Potomac Video I worked at has gone out of business.
Not surprising, as when I worked there, they were losing a ton of business to Netflix, which I eventually joined a few months after I... quit? Was fired? It was more sort of a mutual thing. I was constantly rearranging my schedule to accommodate my better and better-paying job at the comic store, as well as rehearsals for KING JOHN and CLOSER.
Also, it was a miserable job.
For one thing, we weren't allowed to read at work. Even though business had slowed to a crawl, we were forbidden to pull out a book and read to pass the time. We had to stand at the counter and look ever vigilant. Or sit on the stool and wait for my spine to collapse in on itself. Now, we were allowed to watch movies at work, but they had to be inoffensive enough just in case kids were in the store. As if that weren't bad enough, the huge glare that came in through the windows blotted out anything that could be on that TV at the time. And add to that that my co-workers kept insisting on putting on crap, because they are those people who, unlike me, love to watch crap for the sake of laughing at crap.
And so some days I might find myself leaning on the desk, trying to get blood back into my feet, as I listened to TEK WAR play overhead.
Two memories above all others stick out for me from my time at Potomac Video. The first, many of you might remember, being the time someone returned a DVD with a great glob of spooge inside. I still regret not running after him, rubbing the case with the spooge into his face, and shouting, "DUDE! NOT COOL! BAD! BAD!"
The other time... well, you have to remember, during the time I was still heavily in angst over my ex Misty and Clancy, the guy she was dating, who also happened to be the son of Tom Clancy. Working at the video store didn't exactly provide the best environment for emotional rehabilitation, shall we say? So I'm already feeling down when, one day, I am given the job of shelving action movies. I have a big ol' stack of tapes and I go over to the action section, having to put them away alphabetically.
Then I get to the next movie in the stack. Clear and Present Danger. I sigh miserably, then put it away. Because that was one of the things that really killed me about Misty being with Clancy, the fact that I couldn't go into a book, video, or video game store without seeing the name of the guy my ex-girlfriend was fucking plastered everywhere. Anyway, I go back to shelving videos and I get to... Patriot Games. I sigh even more miserably and shelve it too. And then, I get to the very next video on the stack: Play Misty For Me.
I'm struck, dumbfounded for a few seconds, before I exclaim, "Oh come ON! That's not even an action movie!!! Come ON!" I honestly do hope I'm accurately conveying the painful humor of the moment there.
So yeah, I can't really look back on Potomac Video and muse, "Good times." Because they weren't. They blew. But nor can I celebrate the store's demise. After all, before I worked there, it was the best local video store I knew, always good to have a neat selection of interesting and obscure movies. It was kind of sad to work there at a time when Netflix sapped its business so much to the point that it could only scrape by on porno sales, and I'm sorry, I'm just not built to sell "Cum Belchers 14." While I vastly prefer Netflix in virtually every way, I am saddened to see my old store go out in a whimper.
Not surprising, as when I worked there, they were losing a ton of business to Netflix, which I eventually joined a few months after I... quit? Was fired? It was more sort of a mutual thing. I was constantly rearranging my schedule to accommodate my better and better-paying job at the comic store, as well as rehearsals for KING JOHN and CLOSER.
Also, it was a miserable job.
For one thing, we weren't allowed to read at work. Even though business had slowed to a crawl, we were forbidden to pull out a book and read to pass the time. We had to stand at the counter and look ever vigilant. Or sit on the stool and wait for my spine to collapse in on itself. Now, we were allowed to watch movies at work, but they had to be inoffensive enough just in case kids were in the store. As if that weren't bad enough, the huge glare that came in through the windows blotted out anything that could be on that TV at the time. And add to that that my co-workers kept insisting on putting on crap, because they are those people who, unlike me, love to watch crap for the sake of laughing at crap.
And so some days I might find myself leaning on the desk, trying to get blood back into my feet, as I listened to TEK WAR play overhead.
Two memories above all others stick out for me from my time at Potomac Video. The first, many of you might remember, being the time someone returned a DVD with a great glob of spooge inside. I still regret not running after him, rubbing the case with the spooge into his face, and shouting, "DUDE! NOT COOL! BAD! BAD!"
The other time... well, you have to remember, during the time I was still heavily in angst over my ex Misty and Clancy, the guy she was dating, who also happened to be the son of Tom Clancy. Working at the video store didn't exactly provide the best environment for emotional rehabilitation, shall we say? So I'm already feeling down when, one day, I am given the job of shelving action movies. I have a big ol' stack of tapes and I go over to the action section, having to put them away alphabetically.
Then I get to the next movie in the stack. Clear and Present Danger. I sigh miserably, then put it away. Because that was one of the things that really killed me about Misty being with Clancy, the fact that I couldn't go into a book, video, or video game store without seeing the name of the guy my ex-girlfriend was fucking plastered everywhere. Anyway, I go back to shelving videos and I get to... Patriot Games. I sigh even more miserably and shelve it too. And then, I get to the very next video on the stack: Play Misty For Me.
I'm struck, dumbfounded for a few seconds, before I exclaim, "Oh come ON! That's not even an action movie!!! Come ON!" I honestly do hope I'm accurately conveying the painful humor of the moment there.
So yeah, I can't really look back on Potomac Video and muse, "Good times." Because they weren't. They blew. But nor can I celebrate the store's demise. After all, before I worked there, it was the best local video store I knew, always good to have a neat selection of interesting and obscure movies. It was kind of sad to work there at a time when Netflix sapped its business so much to the point that it could only scrape by on porno sales, and I'm sorry, I'm just not built to sell "Cum Belchers 14." While I vastly prefer Netflix in virtually every way, I am saddened to see my old store go out in a whimper.
