And They Say I Lack Social Grace

Fernando is sitting in his chair one August afternoon, playing Bejeweled 2 and being overall jovial, for he has reached Level 12. A car pulls up and a woman Fernando has never seen before slides a movie into the return slot. This is nothing new; Fernando has seen the most random of people return others’ rentals. The important thing is that they get back.

Once Fernando’s gems explode in loss a few scant minutes later, he decides now is as good a time as any to shuffle the movie back on the shelf. As he peers into the drop basket, he shakes his head and sighs. Every so often, people dump Family Video returns into his drop box; Fernando suspects these people fail at basic reading comprehension and geographical awareness.

Normally Fernando waits a while before calling up Family Video in case the person catches the mistake, so he sticks it on the shelf and returns to prowling the internet. Sure enough, about forty minutes later, a car hauls all ass into the parking lot and a man he has never seen before charges into the store. “Hey, do you have a movie that belongs to Family Video?” He is quite curt and his tone of voice is such that he accuses Fernando of being at fault for the misreturned movie.

“If by that you mean, ‘A movie that should have been returned to Family Video,’ yes, yes I do. Here you go.” Fernando hands over the film in question.

The man then says, “Yeah, I don’t know why my wife returned it to this place. We would never rent from you guys.” And he leaves.

Sometimes Fernando regrets being such an honest person.