Elderly Accomodations

It's a slower than slow evening at the Dominion. Graduation season has arrived and the weather is being mighty uncooperative to Fernando, which is a euphemism for 75 degrees and sunny. The door is propped open by an old VHS case and Fernando reads up on how Battleship is being eviscerated by critics. Then the phone rings. The caller ID reads “Hyperline, Inc.”

Hmm, thinks Fernando as he crosses the room to answer. Telecom company, maybe? That's a telecom name. It could be a pornographers' name, and it is the time of year when they ply their wares....

“Hello, Dominion of Movies.”

“Hey. Do you guys rent video games?”

“We have a few here. Why do you ask?”

“My name's Denmark and I'm calling from Hyperline. We're a company that distributes gaming peripherals, including third-party ones for older consoles like Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and so on.”

This call's content is something that Fernando had never encountered before, and he has vague personal interest in these things, but from a business perspective he has no money or space to dedicate to stocking twenty-plus year-old hardware, to say nothing of the games he would need to procure from somewhere on top of it. On top of it all, Fernando's customer base these days is more interested in shiny new Call of Duty clones over grueling, “ugly” platformers from the days of yore.

Denmark continues: “If you wanted to give me your name and contact information, email and so on, so we could set you up that would be fantastic.”

Fernando says, “I'm sorry, but I don't have any interest.”

“Well, this is the Dominion of Movies and Video, right?”

“Yes.” Nobody ever uses the store's full name, but there is in fact a “Video” appended to the end of the name in official documents. Hell, once in a very very great while Fernando comes across something addressed to "Dominion of Movies and Video Club."

Notwithstanding “videos” and “video games” have two different meanings.

“Are video games moving slowly for you, then? If you could give me a baseline of what you carry, so that we can get on the same page as to your needs--”

“I don't have any needs right now, sorry. I'm not interested. Bye.” Fernando hangs up.

Then he looks around at the empty store and thinks to himself, That was the most interesting thing that's happened to me all day.

Living the dream!