This weekend we decided to rent a couple DVDs from Blockbuster, having exhausted our weekly Netflix shipment.

Upon arriving at the counter, I discovered that my account wasn’t in the system. As I had never rented from that particular location before, they said this is no problem and called over to the branch I normally rented from. It seems I wasn’t in that system either.

“Hmm,” said the young lady behind the counter. “Has it been more than 90 days since you last rented?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s been a lot longer than that.”

“Well, there’s your problem. Would you like to sign up for a new account?”

Needless to say, I fucked off and went to Hollywood Video instead, where my account stays permanently active. (I rented the only copy of High Strung in existence there last month, after not renting anything for at least 2 years)

I can’t understand the logic of this at all.

“We are losing customers to Netflix left and right, what can we do to get them to stay?”

“How ‘bout we make them rent something every 90 days or they have to make a new account?”

“Brilliant!”

I used to feel a little sorry for Blockbuster, but not anymore. Fuck them.