Overthought

 “What's a good comedy that came out recently?” a woman Fernando estimates to be in her 30s asks one afternoon.

“Well, I've got The Campaign, with Will Ferrell. I've heard fairly decent things about that one. Um...other than that, Magic Mike is still doing rather well, That's My Boy if you're into Adam Sandler--”

“What's the one you said before?” the woman asks.

“The Campaign?”

“No, the magic one.”

“Magic Mike. Yeah, that one's right here.” Fernando escorts the lady to the case's location, proudly sitting at #2 on the Dominion's Top Ten Rentals shelf.

She inspects the case for a moment, turning it over to read the back. “Okay, I'll take this one.” Fernando snatches a tag from the case and fills out the rental slip like every other time this has happened over his half a decade of working at the place. The woman pays and, since it is a Friday, Fernando asks if she would like popcorn. She declines his offer and departs.

It is now the following day at around 6 PM. The sun has long since vanished from the sky and it is pitch black outside, for the moon is new and shadow cloaks all the land. A vehicle pulls up directly outside of the store, blocking the windows through which Fernando sees the world and cold seeps into the Dominion to torment the feet of its Keeper.

It's the woman from the day before, with the movie. “This movie, oh my word,” she says to Fernando. “It is the worst thing I've ever seen.”

“I'm sorry?” Fernando says, somewhat confused. While Fernando has not seen this film, not being particularly enamored of attractive shirtless men shaking their thang all over the humpty-dump Idon'tevenknowwhatI'mtryingtosayanymore, he trusts in the reviews he has read about how the demographic of the American population which finds such things to be of interest thinks the movie is a great and wonderful thing.

“Yeah, it was really lewd.”

Fernando is not sure how to best respond to that. He tries repetition. “I'm sorry. I thought the case makes a pretty decent, um, argument as to what the contents of that movie would be.”

“No, I thought the case was that way in order to entice people to watch it.”

“Well, yeah. It's a movie about male strippers. That's what's on the front of the case, and I'm pretty sure the back also refers to their profession as such.”

“Yes, but it's misleading. I didn't think the movie would be that bad.”

“...It's a movie about male strippers. Strippers who happen to be males, not the other way around.”

The woman sniffs. “I just don't think you should be renting that out to anybody else, is all. I know I'll be telling people to avoid it.” She leaves.

On the one hand, Fernando lauds the woman's willingness to call into question the blatant salesmanship that is built into the pictures and words on the covers of each and every DVD case, to the point that she disbelieved a movie advertised to be about the antics of male strippers was not, in fact, about the antics of male strippers. On the other hand, the movie claims to be about the antics of male strippers. To not include male stripper antics in a movie which advertises male stripper antics seems like a horrible business decision that would alienate the people who wanted to see it for that reason.

Fernando calls the whole thing a wash.