Understanding

A guy Fernando has never seen before enters. He had been in the company of one of Fernando's female quasi-regulars, who remains outside. Fernando is okay with that. This woman comes to the store about once a month and has choice words for Fernando regarding the fact she does not win his weekly free rentals drawing. Notwithstanding, of course, that she needs to rent more than once a month to have a decent shot at having her name plucked and every week sees the bucket emptied so three-quarters of the time she is not even a contender.

Fernando has given up telling her this after it became apparent she paid his words no mind. He has better uses to which he can put his interpersonal communication skills.

The man immediately leans onto Fernando's counter, which he had just cleaned. He wears a tattered brown t-shirt liberally speckled with dirt, oil, and grease stains, and his forearms are much the same. “Hey, you got Battleship?”

“Indeed I do,” Fernando says. “Let me get that for you.” He levers out of his chair and retrieves the tag in question, then sets to filling out the rental slip.

“You seen it?” asks the stranger.

“I've not,” Fernando responds.

“You're shitting me. You work at a movie place and you don't watch the movies?”

Why is it that people automatically leap to that inference? “I don't watch most of the movies I have. Time and taste play a big role in determining where and when I pop in the things I have here.”

“Man, this movie is awesome. You can't stop watching once you start.”

“I'm glad you enjoy it as much as you do. I, however, would be unable to suspend my disbelief and immerse myself in the narrative, and would instead look for inconsistencies in the plot.”

“Man, if all you care about is a movie's fuckin' plot then you can't watch nothin....” Fernando looks up as the man trails off and understanding dawns. “Ohhhhhhhh.”

Fernando nods, finishes writing, and retrieves the film in question.