I used to work in a video store. It was the northside Family Video in Kenosha, my hometown. Everybody I worked with was nice. There were single moms, college students, housewives, sketchballs and the occasional senior in high school. You see, in order to get a job at the FV, you only need to earn a 70 or higher on the basic skills test (I got a 72. Woot.) and to be 18 years of age. Why 18, you ask? That's easy. Family Video rents PORN.
Due to an odd frequency of stolen DVDs, the northside Family Video in K-town now keeps all of its XXX DVDs in two drawers behind the counter. If a customer wants porn, he or she has to go through the saloon-style double doors into the adult section and retrieve the DVDs corresponding bright orange token. Therefore, it is tragically impossible to rent porn without that 18-year-old brunette video clerk knowing about it. PLUS, since the barcodes for adult movies are (for whatever reason) stuck to the inside of the DVD case, that same clerk gets to see the blonde, boobalicious babes staring back at her from the disc's colorful front side. Oh, funny.
Some of the men coughed, averted their eyes, smoothed their palms down the fronts of their shirts. Some were calm, without remorse, accepting of their desires. One or two made passes at me—to those I raised an eyebrow and took the money, careful not to let our hands touch. A lot of men actually engaged me in the situation, alerting me to the fact that yes, there is porn being rented, and isn't that just hilarious. These are the things I told my co-workers about on Thursdays while processing the next week's XXX new releases, and those were the people we remembered and made sure to allude to during each of their subsequent visits. I only ever encountered one woman renting porn, and she came to the counter with a large stack of poorly hewn softcore video tapes from the '80's. She had a smoker's laugh and leathery skin, and after she left I thought to myself, you go girl.
Often, I wished for a Randal Graves. Some douchebag full of Smithian one-liners and the guts to challenge people on their less than coherent rental choices. It was easy to slip into criticism mode, but after a while, I only wanted to watch and make up stories about every customer. Slow Saturday afternoons, that guy that rides over on his bike every Tuesday and walks out with a dozen two-for-one titles. That's the best part about working at a video store. The couple that rents ""White Chicks"" ten minutes before closing time are obviously going to get bored and make out. The construction worker that rents ""Pi"" and ""City of God"" is married to a school teacher, her hair in a pile on her head, and the admiration between them deep. We did this to everybody—young, old, fat, rich. It wasn't just the dudes that rent porn. I mean, who cares? The tokens are bright orange for a reason. Whether you rent ""Lassie"" or ""Debbie Does Dallas,"" some part of us knows you better than anyone.
