Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man.
General George S. Patton
Greensboro’s Publix unceremoniously removed its Redbox kiosk months ago. Did you even notice? I asked some employees there about it but got few details.
Across the street, the Redbox remains in front of CVS Pharmacy, but CVS says Redbox owes $424,000 in unpaid commission fees, according to the Lowpass website. Redbox will need to rent many DVDs to pay off that debt.
CVS has filed a lawsuit and wants Redbox to remove the kiosks from its properties.
According to reports, Redbox once had 36,000 kiosks at strategic locations nationwide. Now, it has only 28,000.
So, I’m wondering where the other 8,000 kiosks are now. Is there a Redbox boneyard similar to that airplane scrap collection in Arizona?
If Redbox needs a place to put some kiosks, perhaps the city of Rutledge over in Morgan County wouldn’t mind if Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment brought 30,000 or so Redbox kiosks to town and piled them up on the proposed Rivian site.
I mean, what would you do with an old Redbox kiosk anyway? Could you use it as a battleship boat anchor? A refrigerator? Maybe Ukraine could use them as some sort of fixed fortification?
Why not weld Chevy wheels to them and make giant Lego blocks? Perhaps you could build a monument to human shortsightedness out of old kiosks? Maybe inscribe on them the phrase: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Tourists would undoubtedly pay attention to our monument if we put it near the interstate. It would be an attraction similar to that water tower in Gaffney, S.C., that is supposed to look like a peach but looks more like someone’s hind parts.
Well, I suppose renting movies is part of a bygone era now, just like decent Star Wars shows.* In the early days of VCRs, I didn’t rent all that many movies, but I recorded a lot of television on blank VHS tapes. I rarely recorded sporting events, but in 1987, while working Sundays at a department store, I decided to tape the Atlanta Falcons’ season opener against the Tampa Bay Bucs.
I went to great lengths to avoid hearing the outcome, avoiding football fan coworkers and turning off the radio in my car. I was living in my parent’s basement at the time and actually made it home without learning the score.
I was so excited by the possibility of defeating time with technology that I sat down at the dinner table with my parents.
“Your Falcons really stunk it up today,” my dad announced. (They were always my Falcons when they lost.)
Crestfallen, I turned on the radio post-game show and learned the Falcons had lost 48-10. David Archer threw two picks and completed only eight passes for 94 yards, while Steve Deberg lit up the Falcons for 333 yards and threw five touchdown passes. In hindsight, I should have thanked my dad for sparing me the torture of watching the game.
Lightning struck our house a few days later and fried both televisions and my VCR. It was just as well. The NFLPA strike that started after week two meant that three NFL regular season games would be played by policemen, plumbers, and gas station attendants wearing shoulder pads.
Arthur Smith should have tried that last year – at least at the quarterback position.
The Falcons would finish 3-12 in 1987 and dead last in the NFC West. They would finish last for the next three years. Since 1966, the Falcons have finished last 14 times and next-to-last 21 times. Clearly, I have a learning disability.
I don’t have VHS tapes anymore. Over the years, VCRs ate some; I lost some; some had to be destroyed at the recommendation of my attorney.
But when you get as old as I am, the end of any era always seems sad. And I get the melancholies just thinking about it.
Somewhere out there in the world, there might still be a VHS tape of footage shot initially by Macon’s WMAZ (Channel 13) of my 5-year-old son roaming the sidelines of the Monroe Academy football field wearing his Spiderman outfit for Halloween.
Alas, that video is probably lost forever.
You indeed won’t find it at Redbox.
Selah. *Third-straight column referencing Star Wars in some manner.