Warning: If you are allergic to capital letters and italics, I suggest you get a shot first.
For the past several weeks, I have been trying to get my grubby little mitts on a copy of the final season of Battlestar Galactica. Bear and I spent the last few months watching the entire (AWARD-WINNING, I MIGHT ADD) television series on DVDs we took out at the library, and now all we want to do is see how the dingity-dang story ends.
Is that so much to ask? The cosmos says, "Why yes, Marcheline, I think it is."
The main-line arse-wipe video rental store, by which I mean BLOCKBUSTER, who right this very minute has every single previous episode in the entire series sitting on their shelves, are telling me that they are "most likely not going to get the last season".
Um, sorry...... WHAT?!?!??! You have an amazing, fantastic, AWARD WINNING series - all the episodes, from one to one hundred and one (literary liberties taken) - but somehow you've decided that people are going to rent all of those, but nah, they won't want to watch the SERIES FINALE - where everything ties together and we find out what the hell has been going on the entire time????? What kind of crack are they smoking, anyway?
Okay, see, that's just "Part One" of the story. That's where things start out.
Today, Bear has a couple of hours off in the middle of the day, so he comes home to have lunch with me (as it's my regular day off). He goes to the computer and looks up our library system's website. As it turns out, our local library does not have the last season of Battlestar, but another local library DOES! Whoopie!
Just to be on the safe side, he puts the DVDs on hold via the website, and he says to me hey, why don't we just hop in the car and drive over there and pick them up - that way we don't have to wait for them to be transferred to our library, and we can watch the first new episode when I get home tonight. I say that's a great idea, and we hop in and toodle off to Library #2.
When we arrive at Library #2, we split up. Bear goes to the DVD shelves to see if he can locate the item directly, and I head up to the main desk to ask them for the exact location. The lady at the desk is approximately four hundred years old, and she points to a cobwebby corner of the library and says I can look it up myself on the computer. Well, thank you very much, Ancient Library Lady. Didn't mean to disturb your nap.
Arriving at the computer, I find - of course - that it is not working. I head back over to the main desk to inform them. This time, the mummy points to another far-off room of the library and says I should ask at the desk in there. By the time I get to the other desk, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be asking them about the DVD I need or telling them that the computer is not working. So I tell them the whole story.
Bear has, by this time, realized he's not going to find the DVD on the shelf, and has joined me in Room #2. We stand for a considerable time in limbo, while Library Lady #2 stares at her computer screen and mumbles to herself. Then she suddenly gets up and leaves the room. We stand there, not sure if we should follow her or remain where we are.
In a few minutes, she comes back - with the final series of Battlestar Galactica in her hand! We are overjoyed. We take the DVD to the front desk to check it out. A woman with a face like a barrel of rotten prunes says, "May I help you?". Her mouth says those words, but the expression on her face says, "I would prefer if you could just go away and let me get back to my glass of Metamucil."
We present the DVD, and Bear gets out his library card. After scanning both, Library Lady #3 says, "Oh. This is a new DVD. It's not our policy to sign out new DVDs to members of other libraries." Bear and I look at each other with expressions that fairly scream "you've gotta be frakkin' KIDDING ME". Library Lady #3 senses a situation developing, and quickly grabs hold of Library Lady #4, dumps the whole situation in her lap, then trundles off in search of her laxatives.
Library Lady #4 does not have a withering expression on her face, however she repeats the "policy" of not renting out new DVDs to people from other libraries.
Note: Whenever you hear the word "policy" spoken, you know it's not good news. There has never been a "policy" to give you something good or something extra. Policies are created to keep you from getting things.
Then we inquire politely, teeth gritted, why the library system website allowed us to put THEIR DVD on hold if they had no intention of letting us check it out.
That's when the phone calls started. Library Lady #4 got on the phone with some drone who didn't know where the DVD Checkout Goddess was, or even if she was in the building. Then a call was placed to someone else, who provided a cock-and-bull story about how the website only puts the DVD on hold but doesn't specify which library it will come from.
So basically we wasted nearly the entirety of Bear's lunch break driving around and getting the run-around, and we still don't have a copy of the final season of Battlestar Galactica to show for it. And the video stores don't have any plans of ever getting it in. And if you think I'm going to BUY one season of a show... you may be right. I may have no other choice. But only after the prices on ebay go way down, or the used ones on Amazon finally drop.
The cherry on top:
Just before we left the library in defeat, I asked Library Lady #4 how long it would be before said DVD was no longer considered "new" and was able to be checked out by lepers and worthless people who didn't belong to their library. Her answer?
"Oh, a year or so."
Bastards!


































