Remember your Friday nights? At least the ones from eight or ten years ago? When life was just a little bit simpler? When you’d load your kids, maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend, spouse, a half-dozen friends, or any other possible combination of humans, and head to Video Experience? The Telegraph does.
Remember the thrill of waiting for your eyes to focus on the new releases at the other end of the store as you walked in from the cold? To see whether or not there was an available copy behind the display case? Remember when the new release wasn’t available and you willingly rented an old classic, instead?
Remember when your kids would run to the same exact movie they get every time, and protest when you’d suggest they try something different? Remember the banter between you and your significant other when it came to agreeing on a movie? How about browsing the CD’s?
Remember the paintings on the outside? Grabbing a pizza to go? Cracking the same jokes about always having late fees? Knowing and laughing with everyone else in the store? Buying a Nerd Rope and popcorn to go with your movie? Pretending not to notice the dirtier movies when you walked by? The Telegraph does.
Maybe it’s the post-holiday doldrums, or just entertaining the nostalgia of days gone by, but the world that existed during the Video Experience dynasty was a fine one. Maybe life was equally as crazy back then, but has been whitewashed by the passing of time.
Perhaps they were around ten years ago, but I can’t seem to recall the existence of Democrats, Republicans, cancer, Nicki Minaj, climate change, diabetes, vaping, Grizzly Bears, North Korea, body lice, or any other unpleasant things when I was in Video Experience. Sheesh. Whatever the case may be, an establishment such as Video Experience helped to define a community and forge memories. Good ones. Yeah.
Now, back to fake news…and, begrudgingly, Netflix.