I Love Redbox

I love Redbox. Automated kiosks that deliver movies for a buck have to be one of my happiest discoveries of last year. It could only be improved if leprauchans handed me the movies while riding beautiful unicorns. The only drawback is inherent to the technology. Tonight I tried to pop by McD's to rent a movie on the way home. I arrived at an occupied Redbox by what I can only describe as a rather frazzled mullet-haired woman whom I believe was trying to rent a video. At second glance, she could have been trying to solve complex math or balance her check book. For the next 6 minutes of my life, she pressed buttons as if she were an airline booking agent pausing several times to gesture someone in a car (who apparently didn't care enough or was too embarassed to get out of the car). She even stopped once to appologize for having "problems with the thing." After what seemed an eternity a man strolled from inside the McD's to join what appeared to be his wife. She continued pressing buttons, hit restart twice cursing under her breath both times. They finally decided on three videos and she began complaining about how slow the machine was to dispense videos. I wiped off my grimace knowing full well that the pain would end soon. After she left it took about about a minute for me and the guy behind me to finish and get on our ways. Again, Redbox is a beautiful thing.

This makes me wonder how deep the technology divide goes. When I go to the grocery store to get a few things I use the self checkout. It never fails that there's a family of 20 trying to get their cart full of crap through the 10 items or less lane. I know these may be people who are new to the technology but let me go out on a limb here and say most of these people probably have to re-learn the technology each time they use it. I envision a house full of VCR's flashing 12:00. The silver lining is that I'm getting better at spotting these people. Many look like this...

By using this stereotype I have learned how to quickly identify these people and begin looking for a new line (except when I'm at Walmart... I just play on my phone as I slowly die inside). This truly makes me appreciate the fine things in life like people who know how to use self checkouts, Redbox, and condoms.