A tale of a fateful (road) trip,
That started from the local Borders store,
Aboard this tiny Sentra..."
That's how it all started, one of the worst debacles I have ever been a part of. This story will be told for centuries, about how the SO and I never seemed to reach what seemed like a reasonable goal. I'm talking, of course, about that horrifying tale entitled, "The Blu-Ray Purchase...From Hell!"
All of this begins about a month ago, when one average day I received an e-mail from Borders with a coupon for 50% off any two BRDs. Now I had to jump on this chance, as I had just recently bought my BR and I thought this would be a great way to start my collection (and show off the capabilities of the BR for people who came over to our apartment... yeah, I like to brag about the BR, but it's so freakin' sweet!). I printed off the coupon and waited until the weekend to stop by the Borders near the SO and I.
The one rule I have made for myself, when it comes to BRD purchases, is that the BRD must be worth it in BRD format, i.e. there better be a lot of action and/or need for high definition quality of the film. The first BRD fit both of those stipulations. If you remember from earlier, I had wanted to purchase Batman on DVD, but the SO said that if I bought that DVD, I would have to tape all the screams from Kim Basinger and the SO could play the tape at any point just to annoy me. Well, since a BRD is not a DVD, I just happened to see that Batman was available in BRD form. Yeah, I'm sneaky but I just love this movie.
The second movie I bought definitely fulfills the first stipulation about action, and it also was a movie I have loved since I first saw it 10 years ago. "Enemy of the State" always made me wonder what's really going on without our knowing, and since I didn't have it on DVD, I thought it would be worth it to have it on BRD. So simple purchase, right?
No! Of course around that time the new Harry Potter movie was coming out, so the SO had a look through the BRDs and spotted the BR collection of all 5 movies. Well, she decided at that point in the day (late morning) that she would just wait until all 8 movies were out to get them all on BRD in one set.
Early afternoon: After some talking, the SO starts thinking that it might be cool to have the 5-disc set now instead of waiting for the 8-disc set (probably released sometime in 2012). Okay, so maybe I talked her into it. But I knew she would rather have those in BR format than stick with the DVD versions we had. This was all decided while we were out doing errands, meaning we had to go back to the apartment to print off another coupon! We finished our errands run and made it back to the apartment.
At this point, I should mention that we were in the process of moving into a new apartment, so we actually wanted to spend the afternoon moving a bunch of our stuff into the new place, which we ended up doinganyways. We also needed to pick up the SO's car from the mechanic in my hometown. The day was clearly packed with lots to do. Somehow we left for my hometown to pick up the SO's car in our "apartment-moving" clothes (i.e. scrubs), not thinking that we should change clothes. Bad idea...
After picking up the car, we were driving back to town and thought now would be the time to stop by Borders to buy the Potter 5-disc set. So we pull into the parking lot, we get to the BR section... and it's not there! Yeah, I looked through every single shelf to no avail. The people in the section could clearly tell that I was in no mood for anyone getting in my way, as I had a face of determination to find it, if it was the last thing I'd do (i.e. the other people could see the SO wasn't too happy about it no longer being there, mostly because she had promised to send our DVDs of the movies to her parents in NH for two of the SO's "cousins" from Korea who were at the age group designed for the Harry Potter books... yeah, it meant that we no longer had either the DVDs or BRDs of the movies).
I went to the front to ask the lady if there were any copies in the stores in Indy. She said the computer was saying one copy was likely in a couple of the stores (meaning I had no chance) but gave me the phone numbers so I could call to find out. So the SO and I each tried two numbers and luckily the downtown store had a copy, so I told the lady on the phone that we'd be down there to pick it up. The coupon said it would no work for any BRDs put on hold, but I figured the lady would help us out anyway if we told her our story.
So we drive an hour to Indy, in the SO's car, in our scrubs, to buy the 5-disc set. It's approaching 8pm and we drive by the store. In the back of my mind, I thought I should drop off the SO so she can pick it up while I park. Little did I know I should have, as the store had new hours. It closed at 8pm Saturday nights!
By the time we parked, walked to the store, it was 8:15! I was pissed. I couldn't believe it. Most Borders seemed to close around 9 or 10 at night, not 8! I could see people inside cleaning up the place and I wanted to knock on the window to get their attention but the SO stopped me. It was no use. The coupon was only good for Saturday, and I blew it...
Even worse, we couldn't get to Trader Joe's in time before it closed. So we drove home, my head down in shame...
Well, I couldn't let this stop me, so I went on Amazon to see if I could get anything close to the price I would have paid at Borders. The SO said not to worry, that we would survive without them but I was too stubborn (and OCD) to not get this set. After perusing through the selection, I found one that was about 10 dollars more than if I had bought it at Borders, so I bought it.
The SO was thrilled when I surprised her with the set. She was happy, I was happy...
Until later in the week, Amazon had a sale on the BRD set of Harry Potter, selling it for $55! So after trying to get it at Borders for $65, after buying it for $75, Amazon itself was selling it for 55 bucks... the irony...
Later!
"...The SO and the DVD/BR whore,
Here on Funny Story Isle!"
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