A few years back, while wandering the mean streets of the South Shore, I happened upon a most peculiar sight. Two towns over from my own, tucked away in a small plaza with a Family Dollar and a used bookstore, was a small business known only as The Video Store. Color me intrigued, I thought, and immediately wondered what color intrigued actually was. I decided it was probably like a light shade of purple, not entirely unlike that of a Decepticon's insignia circa 1985.
That particular train of thought may have been spurred on by what I discovered inside, but we'll get to that in a moment, yeah?
I wasn't sure what to expect when I walked into this business for the first time. It was 2010 and Mom 'n Pop video stores hadn't existed in my neck of the woods for a few years. Hell, even the chains were slowly fading away, leaving only a pair of sad and neglected Blockbusters nearby. Was this store a wild hallucination brought on by my desire to rent a video from somewhere real and not a Red Box or some automated Blockbuster kiosk? The opportunity to once more peruse shelves lined with cases, staring at ridiculous cover-art and dreaming of what trashy treasures awaited me upon watching the tapes or discs that lay within.
While no one had replaced the movie posters tacked up on the front windows in well over a decade, The Video Store was clearly still open. The lights were on, people [whether customers or employees, I didn't yet know] could be seen staggering about inside, and the door was unlocked. I can't remember for certain, but we'll say that I was trembling, a mixture of excitement and nervousness, as I pushed my way inside. Only to discover...
