I knew it was coming. Still, the shock of seeing it in person...well, it made it real. Driving home today we saw it, the big yellow sign over the big blue sign: Store Closing, This Location Only. We knew we had to stop.
I wondered if the shelves would be bare. I had no idea how long the sale had been going. I hoped there would be something left, something worth buying. We walked through the doors and passed the--what I can only assume were turned off--security gates and possibly for the last time, entered a Blockbuster Video Store.
They did have videos on the shelves, almost like nothing had changed. What surprised both my wife and I the most was the Previously Viewed Movies packed in sleeves. There were so many of these movies, they were literally, (and I'm using the word correctly, here...), literally popping off the display. I personally saw several DVDs fall as people walked by.
We tried searching through these because it looked like the best deal in the place. It soon became evident that most of these movies I had not only not seen, but had never heard of before. And they had a million of these unknown movies. It was incredible! And under the bulging shelves of DVDs, there were boxes and boxes of more DVDs of movies that I never knew existed.
We found Disk 1 of The Ten Commandments. Disk 2 might have been there somewhere, but we didn't have hours to search for Disk 2. I guess Charlton will just have to stay where we left him.
Years from now, when someone recalls those days when you couldn't just download a movie instantly, when you actually had to get in your car and drive to the store and either rent or buy a movie to watch, younger generations will look at that older, more experienced person and wonder how they ever survived. The older, wiser person will smile and fold his arms over his/her chest. "Blockbuster," they will say, "was a great place."
