Acting Range

One of Fernando's regulars enters the store one sunny afternoon. “Hey, Fernie, where ya got The Tourist?”

“It's right over there,” Fernando responds, rising from his seat and pointing. The man plucks the tag and brings it to the counter, whereupon Fernando begins filling out the rental slip.

“Yeah, the wife wanted to see this thing because it has Johnny Depp. I don't really see the point.”

“Eh, to each their own,” Fernando says diplomatically as he retrieves the movie in question.

“How hard can it be for the guy to act? It's not hard to be fuckin' Edward Scissorhands or a crazy pirate. Arrrrrr!” he snarls with one finger curled into a hook-like shape, firm in the belief that his portrayal of a swashbuckler was of equal quality as Johnny Depp's.

Fernando considers for but a moment invoking one of the many, many other movies in which Johnny Depp was not simply fuckin' Edward Scissorhands or a crazy pirate—Chocolat and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas came most immediately to mind—but Fernando had better things to do than engage in a fruitless argument with someone whose mind was already made up and which could very well catapult things from merely misinformed to horribly annoying.

So instead Fernando bids the gentleman a good evening and returns to his seat after the man leaves.