Damage Control

Cortez visits the Dominion one evening to shoot the breeze as closing time draws near. As he and Fernando discuss matters of great importance in life, a vehicle pulls up and deposits a movie in the drop box. Fernando heads over to take it out and replace it on the shelf, but when he lifts the case he hears rattling.

Ah, thinks Fernando, they've left money in there. Some of Fernando's savvier customers leave their money for late fees in the cases when they drop them off to save everyone the trouble of remembering that they exist down the road. This also allows Fernando's customers to get rid of some of their small change without being too obviously dickish about it.

But when Fernando opens the immortal plastic outer case to remove the inner jewel case and disc, two things were awry. The first was that Fernando had been mistaken about the presence of money in the case.

The second is that the jewel case came apart in Fernando's hands, spilling the movie to the countertop:

Cortez sees this horrible series of realizations unfold. “Wow,” he says after Fernando arranges the bits of the jewel case on the counter.

Fernando, meanwhile, is peering at the store sticker on the disc. “I know exactly who rented this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. This one's six days late. My question is why bother even including the case when it is clearly ruined beyond any hope of use.”

“I couldn't tell you.”

Fernando sighs and adds another fifty cents to the tally.