Thanks for nothing, Laguna Beach: Part 2
Coming back from my mental tangent I realized I’m still standing in line. I’ve probably been there a good ten minutes and the people behind me are becoming quite unhappy and rather vocal about it, harassing the store employees who respond “we don’t work for Red Box, sorry.”
I realize the girls ahead of me have mom’s debit card and can’t figure out the billing zip code in order to retrieve the movies they’ve been deliberating over for the past 10 minutes. (And that’s a lot considering most people spend 60 seconds picking a movie at Red Box.) So, again, the shiny little sidekick appears and the first girl waits as someone is apparently getting mother on the phone. Zip code after zip code is not doing the trick and the girls make no effort to move so the 10 people crowded behind them can get on with their lives. I have a headache. And I’m holding groceries. I can seriously feel my blood pressure rising.
“It’s not working. It’s … uh! No. I don’t know. It’s just not working.”
Over and over this girl tries new zip codes and even the same one a few times, but not in any sort of hurried fashion. Meanwhile, I can hear that the person on the other end of the phone has no answer as to why it won’t work. I let it go on for a couple minutes thinking it would resolve itself since obviously no one had an alternate zip code to type in. But once I realized this girl just planned to stand there on the phone doing nothing until she got a new answer (which wasn’t coming) I realized I had to intervene.
“Excuse me, girls, you’re just going to have to get back in line while you figure out this zip code thing because there are a lot of people waiting behind you.”
I was about a foot away from the two girls and even though one could see me without turning around, neither of them so much as looked over. It took everything I had and then some to not reach between the girls and hit “Start Over” on their session and return my DVD with them still hovering over the screen. I could have, but I didn’t, and that damn better build some karma somewhere because it was the hardest thing I’ve done all week. Instead, I stood there and stared at them like “I know you heard me,” and about 15 seconds later they stormed off in a huff. I hit the button, slid in my DVD and left the store.
I’d just started relaxing as I drove through the parking lot until a brand new, white PT Cruiser coming out of a parking row ignored their stop and had to abruptly brake to avoid slamming into my SUV. I looked at the car only to see the two girls from a couple minutes ago looking back at me.
Teenagers will be teenagers, I suppose. I just wish they’d be teenagers instead of ill-mannered 20-year-olds.
Thanks for nothing,
Precocious entrepreneur, workaholic and a rabid perfectionist Crystal Starlight knows a thing or two about getting ahead at a young age. Email her at [email protected]