Whoa! Didja get the numbers off that truck?!?

2001-08-26 - 10:30 a.m.

IhateBestBuydotcom

There has to be a website out there like that. I read Ibe's diary entry and I have a Best Buy story of my own.

I have this magnificent RCA VCR that's been a faithful player of videotape for many years. It still works, but doesn't get much use these days, as it's been supplanted by the smug and superior DVD player.

When the kiddies were small, Spidey bought me a camcorder. It was one of the first really small ones (RCA Small Wonder). We made hours and hours of videotapes of the kids. I highly recommend this to all you parents of small kids out there. Go out and buy one, even if you can't afford it. We sure coudn't, but that never stopped us before! You will cherish those tapes in the future, I assure you.

I transferred the contents of the small VHS-C tapes to larger tapes so we could watch them. I was getting quite a collection of them too. As the kids got older they got a real kick out of watching themselves on tape.

One of those tapes, actually the first edition, got stuck in the VCR. It broke and the VCR wouldn't eject it. The kids were having a Home Movie Marathon one day, and that pretty much ended it. they felt badly, but it couldn't be helped. Hey no problem, I'm an old hand at taking stuff apart and putting it back together again with no leftover parts.

I disassembled this sucker right down to the bare chassis. Nothing but the tape transport mechanism and the plastic base it was mounted on. By the way, now I know how they can sell VCRs for less than a hundred bucks. There's nothing in the damn things! The whole thing was held together with about six screws!

The tape was held fast in the jaws of the VCR. No coaxing the thing out. I put it back together.

Off to Best Buy I go. Please get the tape out. I leave with my claim ticket.

Ten days later they call and say it's ready. I arrive at Best Buy with my claim ticket and wait in their long "service" counter line. While we wait, an impatient member of my line complains out loud about the wait, to no one in particular. If I was a different person, I would have suggested out loud that he consider this reality before making any more Best Buy purchases. But I didn't. He'll be back too.

Finally it's my turn in line. They bring my formerly stubborn but now subdued VCR out from the back. They got the tape out.

Where's the tape?

Uh, you wanted it? I dunno where it is.

Now I'm mad. The slack-jawed, couldn't-care-less, I-get-off-work-at-noon, zit-boy attitude has pushed me to the brink.

You can't find the tape? That's not just a fucking tape you slouch, that's a history book! You lost my children you sub-normal excuse for a counter employee!

I can't believe it. But I'm getting nowhere.

That tape has been carelessly tossed in the trash by some careless faceless punk in some Best Buy service center somewhere. My babies are probably trapped in a suburban landfill now. My little Son1 playing in his PJs in a shaft of morning sunlight, his wispy hair aglow. My little Son1 getting off his swingset to trudge over to come talk to me, his daddy who always has that camcorder thing in front of his face. The baby voices, the uncertain early steps, the trike riders barreling down the driveway. Gone, buried in a landfill.

Best Buy sucks

the last one -*- the next one