By Josh Hornbeck

 

Note - This piece does include some potentially offensive content.

You've been warned.  So don't come whining to me later on.  Got it? 

 

My life at Blockbuster has finally ended.  Thank God.  On Thursday afternoon, just before heading into my last shift, my roommate questioned my decision.  “Have you panicked yet and withdrawn your resignation?” he asked, a cynical smirk on his face.

 

“Nope.”  The previous night at work was filled with enough bad customers that it only reinforced my decision to leave the hell-hole that was (and is for some unfortunate souls) Blockbuster Video.

 

I had been at Blockbuster for just under four years by the time I quit.  That’s a large portion of your life devoted to a place that sucks your soul and drains your spirit.  So on my last, ridiculously busy night as a Blockbuster employee, I reflected on the previous four years and thought I’d share a few of the highlights (well, lowlights) of my career with the Blockbuster Video.

 

WORST DAY

 

I’ve worked my share of crappy shifts (getting home at midnight and back to work the next morning at nine) and dealt with bad customers and bad employees.  But by far, my worst day at Blockbuster was New Year’s Day, 2003.  We had just lost one the worst assistant managers in the history of Blockbuster (more on him later) and the employee I was scheduled to work with that day was shuffled off to emergency training so we could give him a key.

 

The day started off pretty mellow.  There were only a few customers here and there.  I was able to get the first load of returns put back on the shelf.  I was even able to take my fifteen minute break behind the counter, reading a book I brought with me.  But all that changed at 12:30.  People sleeping off hangovers started to wake up.  Men and women with nothing better to do filed into the store (one of the few places open) like zombies, looking for something to occupy their free, waking hours.

 

And suddenly, without warning, all of the customers in the store received some sort of telepathic summons and made their way to the front at the exact same time.  The line began to form.  It started at the front counter and wound its way nearly fifty yards to the back of the store.  It stayed like that until I left at five o’clock.  Four and a half hours of line-crushing madness.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to run.  But the only thing I could do was hand customer their movies and wish them a happy New Year.

 

Most of the customers were nice and understanding, although more than a few of them made obvious statements like, “Gotcha working here by yourself, huh?”  No.  I just like to let my co-workers sit in the back and drink coffee all day.  A few customers left, angry about the line.  But I got pretty good at answering the three phone lines, signing up new members, checking customers out, all while still managing to eat my lunch at the same time.  As crappy a day as it was, I was still pretty proud of myself.

 

WORST EMPLOYEE

 

This award goes to the incredible Alexander Roff.  He was the first person I worked with when I started my job at Blockbuster.  He was an assistant manager and treated me as if I was there to study at the feet of a great master.  Six months later, I was promoted above him to assistant store manager (a very fine but important distinction, let me assure you) and Alex complained about it each and every time he came to work.

 

There are reasons he was passed over for a promotion.  About two weeks into my time with the company, I was working with Alex on a Saturday afternoon – a busy time of the week in the video business.  He approached me in between customers.  “Hey Josh, I’ve got paperwork to file.  I’ll be back up front in a little while.”  Two hours later and nearly a thousand dollars in sales (which is a lot when you charge four bucks a movie) Alex reappeared, reeking of pot, which he lit up in the employee bathroom.  The manager could never find hard evidence of his misconduct, but the circumstantial evidence was all around.

 

His favorite thing to do at work was walk around the store with a pile of papers in his hands and shuffle through them, appearing busy.  When I was promoted, I realized that all that paper shuffling was nonsense.  He wasn’t doing anything at all, but could pretend that he was to those less familiar with policy and procedure.  In a similar vein, he would stand behind the register with a “Closed” sign up, pretending to be writing notes about the shift, but as soon as a pretty girl would appear, he’d take down the sign and help her, trying to flirt as much as possible.

 

On a lighter and less aggravating note, the store manager (also named Alex) decided to watch the video tape of times Alex said he was “working on paperwork,” and discovered that he was spending his timing drawing sketches (he wanted to be a comic book artist) and then shredding them so no one could see what he was doing.  Brilliant Mr. Roff.  Brilliant.

 

WORST MANAGER

 

I had the best manager I’ve ever worked for in a man by the name of Alex Thompson.  I worked for him for two and a half years.  The entire staff was intensely loyal to him.  He knew how to inspire confidence and how to get us to moderately enjoy life at Blockbuster.  But once he quit, it all fell apart.

 

His replacement was Michelle Hughley.  She is, without a doubt, the worst person I have ever had the misfortune of working for.  In her first staff meeting she told us all that she planned to move up in the world of Blockbuster and didn’t plan on staying around very long.  Great for inspiring employee confidence and trust.  She also said she didn’t want to change the way things were done around the store – since we got great sales results – but reneged on that promise within a couple of weeks.

 

A micromanager, she took tasks that had been delegated to employees and made sure she did them all herself.  I personally had the schedule taken away from me – a task which I performed flawlessly for two years.  One thing that determines the store managers’ bonuses at the end of the year is how well they monitor their labor.  So, in taking over the schedule, Michelle was free to under-staff the store and come in twenty to thirty hours a week under labor projections, increasing her bonus and the stress felt by every staff member.

 

While she decreased our ability to have employees in the store (sometimes calling and demanding we send people home), she would refuse to come into the store on the nights that she was scheduled to work.  This prompted my good friend Ian, one of the assistant managers, to kick a cabinet door into itself.  She lost half of her staff within two months and the other half just didn’t have another job to go to.

 

In typical Blockbuster fashion, Michelle was promoted to a higher volume store, one in which she could reek even more havoc than before.

 

ONE A POSITIVE NOTE . . .

 

There were good times at Blockbuster, but they don’t stand out as much as the bad times.  I’m not sure why that is exactly.  But I do have one story that started off in pain and misery, but ended with much joy and happiness for all involved.

 

Once upon a time, toward the end of a morning shift, a woman came up to my register to rent a movie.  She had a balance of four dollars and twelve cents.  Not a big deal.  She asked if she could pay it the next time she came in.  Now, there was a huge flashing warning on the account saying to beware of credits with this customer.  So I checked the history.  In the past thirty days, we had credited off nearly thirty dollars of fees on her account and the balance that was sitting there had been on there for a couple of weeks – she kept asking to pay it next time.

 

I told her that I was sorry but since we had already credited so much money off of her account and had already deferred this payment for about four or five visits, she needed to pay the balance before renting again.  She was livid.

 

“I always get to skip out on paying my balance!” she shouted.

 

“That’s why we need you to pay this time.”

 

She composed herself and looked me straight in the eyes.  “You know, I really believe that there are times in your life when you have the ability to help people, and if you don’t, it’s going to come back and bite you in the ass.”

 

“I’m sorry, ma’am, you’re going to have to pay the balance if you want to rent the movie.”

 

She took a deep breath, struggling to gain the moral high ground.  “Fine.  But karma’s a bitch sometimes.  Let me tell you.”

 

She paid and started to leave the store.  “Have a nice day,” I said as she started out.

 

She stopped and turned to me.  “Oh, I will have a nice day.  But you won’t.  You’ll have to live with yourself.”  And she left.

 

I was flabbergasted.  It would have been funny if she hadn’t been so infuriating.  As for karma biting me in the ass?  Well, when I got home that night I ended up with free concert tickets from a friend.  Yep, that karma certainly is a bitch sometimes.

 

I thought that was the end of the story, but a couple of days later, she came back in and was being helped by another employee.  On her way out she stopped to talk to me for a moment.  “I just wanted to apologize for my behavior the other day.  I was completely out of line.”

 

I was shocked.  It was the only time during my entire career in customer service that a customer apologized to me.  It was one of those few moments that renew your faith in humanity and America.  I thanked her and now, whenever we pass each other on the street, we end up chatting for a few minutes.

 

There are other stories like that, but for the most part, customers suck.  And giant soul-sucking corporations suck.  And now that I’m out of this environment of suckiness, a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I feel like I can do anything.

By Josh Hornbeck

 

I played softball this weekend.  For those of you who have known me for a while, let me say it again – I played softball this weekend.  And I actually enjoyed myself.

 

For those of you who don’t know me very well, you probably don’t understand what a big deal that is.  So let me explain.  I hate sports.  No, no hate isn’t quite right.  I loath sports.  If an activity requires balls and sticks, rackets and pads – if running and jumping and throwing or any other exertion of physical energy is involved – I detest that activity with the kind of venom usually reserved for telemarketers and my customers at Blockbuster.

 

I don’t come from an athletic family.  My father never turned sporting events on in the house.  Not that he was against sports in principle; they were just never a big interest of passion of his.  Maybe it comes from the fact that he’s a pastor.  Not that being a pastor automatically makes you disinterested in sports either; it’s more often the opposite.  I don’t know how many sermon illustrations I’ve heard drawn from sporting metaphors.  The church my father pastured was a small community church in a small town – Brewster.  Life in Brewster revolved around two things – sports and orcharding.  And with the greatest game known to man usually occurring on Sunday afternoons and with my father not known for his pithy sermons, the men of town would collectively set the alarms on their watches to go off so they could get home before kickoff.  So my father would be in mid-sentence when a cacophony of digital beeps would go off all at once.  Just to spite them, my father would typically go on for another fifteen or twenty minutes.  I think that if my father had started turning on televised sports, it would have been like giving in to the mentality that football was more important than spiritual growth.

 

Not only was Monday night football absent from our family viewing, but as a kid, I was never athletically inclined.  I always wanted to be, but – let’s face it – I just wasn’t very coordinated.  No matter what the sport, I could never get myself to hit the ball, make the basket, or tackle the other guy.  And in Brewster, if you weren’t playing sports, there wasn’t anything else for you to do with your extra-curricular time.  So like it or not, I was stuck playing.

 

My first Little League coach was terrible.  He took the game as seriously as if it were the major leagues.  The ten-year-old players entrusted to his care were never able to understand his manic desire to win.  If you were to tell him it was just a game, he would swear at you up and down and tell you to take a lap.  I know, having made that very mistake on multiple occasions.

 

Once I made it to Junior High, I thought I might get better.  I joined every sport and did my best.  Unfortunately, both flag football and basketball were lost causes.  To try and give some motivation, my parents offered to pay me five dollars for each basket I made or each flag I pulled.  The thing was – I was plenty motivated.  I just wasn’t gifted.  Each sporting season I made about five dollars.  To make matters worse, I was exiled to the B-Squad of the seventh grade teams both seventh and eighth grade years.  That’s right.  I was on the B-Squad of the seventh grade team while I was in the eighth grade.  Talk about humiliation.

 

I was a little better in track.  I wasn’t the fastest runner, but I was one of the only kids dumb enough to run the mile and two mile.  So those were my events.  Based on a lack of contestants, I tended to place each time I ran.  Consequently, it was the only sport I did when I moved on to high school.  But once my family moved to California – to a school that had a thriving arts program – I gave up on sports all together.

 

The thing that really got to me about my athletic endeavors wasn’t the fact that I wasn’t very good (though that was true).  It was the feeling that I was letting everyone down because I wasn’t very good.  Every time I would miss a basket or fumble a ball I’d hear the disgust in my teammates’ voices.  They would shout out their anger and frustration.  “How could you miss that?”  “What were you thinking?”  “Why do you suck so much?”

 

At first I thought it was just because I was playing in leagues and on teams whose entire purpose was winning.  Playing for fun wasn’t part of the equation in junior high and high school sports.  But when I got older and would play basketball or volleyball or softball at picnics and parties, I’d hear the same disdain from my friendly teammates when I’d screw up.  It was usually hidden as “encouragement.”  They might say “Come on!  You can do better than that!”  But it would inevitably decay into bitterness and frustration once they discover that I really couldn’t do any better than that.

 

So it was with a fair amount of fear and trepidation that I approached this past weekend’s softball game.  A friend of mine from church was throwing a surprise birthday party for his wife – an avid softball enthusiast.  I went to be there for my friends, but told myself I would never step behind the plate.  But before I knew it, I was assigned a team and a glove and was out in the field.

 

Just before we headed out, my friend Miguel leaned over and said, “I just hope I’m not the guy that strikes out or hurts someone.”  I knew exactly what he meant.

 

We were able to make it through the first inning without the need for me to even touch the ball.  Thank God.  But then it was our turn at bat.  Damn.  I positioned myself fairly far down the lineup.  I wanted to avoid picking up a bat and swinging away.  But none of us were really all that good (with a few notable exceptions – and I’ll leave those of you who were there to figure it out on your own), so, with two outs and two runners on base, it was my turn at bat.

 

I was so conscious of my stance and swing when I got to the plate that I let the first ball go by.  I swung at the second and missed.  “I’ll bet I look like an idiot,” I thought to myself.  The third ball was thrown and I swung, hitting it down the third base line.  It went foul, but I ran all the way to first anyway, hoping that I’d be done for the morning.  But no.  I walked back to the plate and took the fourth pitch, hitting a line drive that was thrown to first to get me out.  I was out, but I hit the ball.

 

In the field again, I wound up on third base.  My nervousness was beginning to recede.  This wasn’t as bad as I had imagined it to be.  I just hoped no one threw or hit the ball in my direction.  Finally, there was a runner at first and a runner at second.  Whether I liked it or not, the ball was going to come my way.  This terrible pressure began to settle on my shoulders.  What if I screwed up?  What if I dropped the ball when someone threw it to me?  What if I’m the reason our team loses the game?  Were my adult friends going to yell at me in the same way my junior high friends did?

 

The ball did come my way.  The batter hit it directly for me.  I stopped it with my glove, grabbed it and was even able to tag the runner out – all while losing my glasses and playing blind.  I did it.  I got someone out.  I was surprised and amazed and thrilled.  This was the best game of my life.

 

We played a few more innings.  I hit the ball every time I was at bat.  I missed a catch that would have gotten a runner out, but my friends were supportive and had fun.  “That’s okay.  That’s okay.  We’ll get it next time.”  So this was how sports were supposed to be played.  This is what it’s like to have fun and not be so concerned with who wins or loses.  Yeah, we wanted to win, but it wasn’t the life and death situation so many people make it out to be.  After all, it’s just a game.

Personal Essay

By Josh Hornbeck

 

I ran into my ex-fiancé over Christmas break.  Actually, a better way to put it would be that I saw my ex-fiancé walking through the Safeway parking lot while I cowered in the passenger seat of my father’s car praying Misha wouldn’t see me and force an awkward moment on my father and I.  It was the first time I’d seen her in nearly two years.  She lives in Arizona and I live in Seattle and never the twain shall meet.  All in all, it’s a pretty agreeable situation.  Of course, there’s always the frightening possibility of running into each other while I’m visiting my family on holidays or other random functions.  So far, in two years of Thanksgivings, weddings, Christmases, and birthdays, I’ve been fortunate.  This Christmas was a close call.  Closer than I’d like.

 

Everything about my relationship with Misha was strange.  The whole thing was completely out of character for me.  I’m not the most impulsive of guys.  In order for me to feel comfortable enough to ask a girl out, I normally need big, flashing neon signs telling me she’s interested.  I won’t talk to anyone about her until we’ve been dating for a month or two, worried that I’ll jinx it or something.  For better or worse, that’s just the way I typically act in the beginning stages of a relationship.  I’m telling you all this so that when you hear about my courtship process with Misha you’ll understand how different it was for me.

 

My parents, God bless them, are always looking for someone to set me up with.  As their only unmarried (and oldest) offspring, they want to ensure my relational happiness. So, several years ago, they kept telling me about this girl from their church they wanted me to meet.

 

“Oh, Josh!  You have to meet her!  You two are just so perfect for each other!”

 

This girl, Misha, was new to their church and interested in acting and singing and all sorts of random artistic endeavors.  So naturally, being the gifted and talented artist that I am, my parents – and when I say my parents, I mean my mother – thought we would be a perfect match.

 

“And Josh . . .  When she saw your picture on the fridge, she was pretty impressed.”

 

I had all these ideas of what this girl must look like.  She must be some sort of unseemly ogre.  Who else would be interested in a picture of me hanging on the fridge?  Really, I know I’m no Brad Pitt.  I’m not even a Brad Garrett.  Or a Brad of any kind.  I have to rely on my charm and my sense of humor and personality to get girls interested in me.  My looks have never been the deciding or even inciting factor.  So this girl had to be hideous.  Why else would she be interested in me when she hasn’t even been entertained by my “Freshman Roommate from Hell” story?

 

Anyway, I go home for my younger brother’s wedding.  The entire time I’m at my parents’s house I keep an eye out for strange women coming over for stamping parties or potlucks or whatever Bible study my parents were hosting.  This “Misha” never showed.  I started flipping through pictures of their church events, hoping to catch a glimpse of this woman they were intent on setting me up with.  My mom caught me looking through the pictures and must have known what I was looking for.

 

“Oh, honey.  Would you like to see a picture of Misha?”

 

“Well . . .  I’m not – I mean –”

 

“I’m sure we have a picture of her here.”  She began shuffling through drawers and folders.  “Really, I know we have one here somewhere.”

 

“Hey, it’s okay.”

 

Hands on her hips, she shook her head at the errant photos.  “Well, I’m sorry Josh.  I could invite her over for dinner sometime this week if you’d like.”

 

Just then, my father entered the room.  “Invite who over for dinner?”

 

“Misha,” she said with a conspiratorial whisper, as if I couldn’t hear her.

 

“That’s a great idea!”  Dad, my hope for shelter from the matchmaking storm, had jumped on the pro-Misha bandwagon.  “What do you think, Josh?”

 

I jumped to my feet and backed away a bit.  “You know what?  I think I’m okay.  If we happen to meet, great.  If not, it’ll be okay.”

 

“Okay,” my mom sighed.  They were both a little disappointed.

 

The next two weeks were consumed with wedding details.  We spent most of the week in Phoenix decorating, getting tuxes and dresses, and just preparing for the blessed event.  My current relational void was forgotten in the wake of my brother’s impending nuptials.  Although, as I started to harass Matt about his wedding, he began to join in with the matchmakers.

 

“So Josh, you gonna meet Misha while you’re up here?”

 

“I don’t know, Matt.”

 

My brother has a wicked, mischievous little grin and used it to its full effect.  “You know, Josh.  You two are perfect for each other.”

 

“That’s what they say.”

 

By this point, I had so many people telling me how “perfect” Misha and I were for each other that I finally caved into the pressure and curiosity.  I really wondered about her.  Maybe she would be the love of my life.

 

The wedding came and went.  My brother and his new wife were off on their honeymoon and we all headed back to Flagstaff.  To be fair to my parents, they didn’t mention Misha at all in the week after my brother’s wedding, the week I was heading back to Seattle.  Maybe they had second thoughts about shaping the destiny of these two young singles.  Maybe they just didn’t want to push a good thing.  Whatever the reason, it was a nice mellow week with no stress or pressure.  But at the back of my mind, I kind of hoped I’d get to meet this mystery woman.

 

My plane left Phoenix on a late Sunday afternoon, so my mother and I had to make the trip down the mountain fairly early in the day, missing my parents’s church service – and any chance I’d have to meet Misha.  As the pastor of a small congregation, my father was typically at the church (or the small school auditorium them met in) early each Sunday, unlocking the building and getting everything set up for the morning.  I went in to spend a last little bit of time with him while my mother got ready for the drive.  I was helping set up the room when Misha came in.

 

I wasn’t certain it was her, but I had a good idea.  She was tall and beautiful – not at all the ogre I had envisioned my parents setting me up with.  She approached me with a beaming smile.  “Are you Josh?”

 

I shoved awkward hands into my pants pockets.  “Yeah.  You must be . . . Misha.  Right?”  Our eyes locked for a moment.

 

“Yeah.”  She smiled again and nodded, breaking away with a bashful glance at the floor.

 

We talked for the next half hour, finding out a little about each other, discovering similar passions and excitements.  It was one of those rare moments of instant connection.  Finally, my mother (and chauffer) arrived to whisk me off and back to my (now) more boring and mundane existence.  Misha and I exchanged phone numbers and email addresses and I told her I’d write her when I got home.  She smiled at me and waved goodbye, the last person I saw in Flagstaff.

 

For the entire three-hour drive to the airport I was preoccupied by this unexpected new person in my life.  I guess she wasn’t completely unexpected.  My entire family did do their best to orchestrate this little encounter, I just didn’t expect there to be anything to it.

 

“So what did you think?” my mom asked with a coy little smile.

 

“About what?”  Ignorance was my best chance to avoid embarrassment.

 

“Oh, come on, Josh!  About Misha?”

 

What was I supposed to say?  “We had a good conversation.  We’re going to keep talking to each other through email and stuff.  We’ll see.”

 

A knowing smile on her lips, my mother turned back to the road.  “Okay.”

 

As soon as I made it back to my apartment (five hours later), I sat down and wrote the first of many emails to Misha, beginning an email friendship that, days later, turned into a phone relationship.  We learned a lot about each other, sharing pretty personal stories very early on.  Misha had a one-year-old daughter (don’t worry, my parents did tell about her when they first mentioned Misha to me) named Madalyn and had been in a series of bad relationships.  My last relationship had lasted a while and I hadn’t been involved with anyone since.  We were both very interested in each other and we began to talk more seriously of a potential future together.

 

Once again I have to state that, for the record, I am not an impulsive person.  Not in the slightest.  Ask any of my previous girlfriends if you doubt me.

 

Because we started to talk about love and relationships so early, I began to think that, if this was the person I was going to marry, I wanted to be involved in her life and in the life of her daughter as soon as possible.  After all, Madalyn would become my daughter and I didn’t want to miss out on any more of her life than I already had.  So Misha and I started to talk marriage.

 

In late August, she flew out to Seattle so we could actually spend some time together face to face.  Obviously there was a little awkwardness.  Memory of a person and the real thing are two different entities and we both had assumptions based on our phone conversations, email dialogues, and pictures sent back and forth.

 

“Did you always wear glasses?  Were you wearing them back in Flagstaff?” she asked me.

 

“Yeah.  Yeah, I was.”

 

“Hm.”  She screwed her face up in concentration, trying to place the physical glasses I was wearing on my face with the memory of me she had held onto over the past two months.  “You look . . .  different than I remember.”

 

Uh-oh.  This wasn’t a good sign.  I knew her attraction to me must have been a mistake.  Crap!  I was on edge the entire weekend.  I wasn’t the guy she had remembered.  I wasn’t the guy she wanted to be with.  I could tell.  She was already starting to become distant and detached.

 

I paid attention to every word she said, reading her moods and feelings as best I could.  If I started to say something and noticed she wasn’t interested or was getting angry and frustrated, I’d back down and change my point or the way I told the story.  I was walking on eggshells for most of her visit.

 

But even with all that, there were times when we both were able to relax and simply be ourselves.  And those times were wonderful and exhilarating.  It was during those times that I decided I would propose to her.  I had already planned everything out.  We went to a park late Sunday evening and had dessert.  She said yes.

 

After she left, I was confused and excited and nervous and scared and thrilled.  We didn’t know each other well, but I was willing to make the commitment (and it seemed as though she was too) to make this work.  There just seemed to be so many issues we would have to work through.

 

At the end of September I flew out to Flagstaff so we could formally announce our engagement and I could meet her daughter and we could begin making plans.  Our first two days together were great.  All of the awkwardness and distance were gone.  We were completely relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company and the company of friends and family who wished us all well.  But two days later, the switch happened again.  Suddenly, she wouldn’t talk to me.  I could tell she was upset, but wasn’t sure why.  We would spend our time together in silence and every time I would try to talk she would barely look at me.

 

My last day in Flagstaff, I took her out to coffee so we could talk and see what was really going on.

 

“I don’t know,” she said, boring a hole through the table between us.

 

“Are you upset?  Did I do something wrong?  What’s going on?”

 

She looked up at me for a moment.  “It’s just . . .   I don’t know.”  There was a long silence.  Finally, “Maybe it’s just having you meet my parents and . . .  I don’t know.”

 

“Okay.”  I didn’t buy it.

 

Misha was originally going to be taking me to Phoenix, but she wasn’t feeling up to it, so I had a long and quiet drive with my parents.  They did their best to cheer me, offering the best advice they could under the circumstances.  But I was leaving town.  Misha and I weren’t going to be able to sort through our issues face to face.  This sucked.

 

I got home late and called her the next morning.  She didn’t answer so I left a message.  “Hey Mish.  It’s Josh.  Um, just wanted to let you know that I made it home safely.  Gimme a call when you get the chance, okay?”

 

Later on the in the day I got a text message from her.  “I think I need some time to think things through.  Please don’t call for a while.”

 

I had that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I wasn’t going to be able to salvage this relationship, would I?  I called a week later.  Still no answer.  I emailed her.  Nothing.  I spent more than a month in relational purgatory, with no sense of what was going on, what I did wrong, or how I could fix it.  It was a month of silence.  A month that she ignored me.

 

In early November I finally got an email from her.  Not a phone call.  An email.  It read, “Josh, I’ve spend a lot of time thinking about us and I just don’t feel good.  I can’t place the feeling.  I just don’t feel safe.  Being in love is about yelling at each other and fighting and making up the next day.  I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can marry you.”

 

That was it.  It was over.

 

It’s easy for me to blame her.  After all, she ignored me for a month and handled the break-up in the worst way possible.  Email?  You break off an engagement through email?  Although I guess since our relationship started over email, it was a fitting way for it to end.  I asked for the ring back and she ignored me for three or four more months before she finally agreed to return it to my parents (she didn’t want to pay for shipping and insurance).  So yeah, it’s easy to blame her.

 

But the thing is, I finally understand what it was that kept her from feeling safe around me, what it was she didn’t feel good about.  Writing is an easy way for me to distance myself from my feelings.  It allows me to think and consider and ponder before speaking.  I can be thoughtful and deliberate and say exactly what I want to say.  I can craft a different personality for each situation.  In person, I don’t have that same time to become someone new.  I’m just me.  I find myself being overly cautious in everything I say, doing my best to become the person my friends (or my fiancé) want me to be.  I’m just not as smooth with it in person as I am with the written word, so I come across pretty awkward.  And how could she feel safe and secure with me with I wasn’t secure with myself?

 

So no, I can’t blame Misha that things didn’t work out.  Over the past two years I’ve learned a lot about myself.  I’ve come to accept and work through a lot of my relational flaws.  And I’m over her.  It was a difficult chapter in my life that I learned from.  It gave me some good stories to tell.

 

I just don’t want to run into her in a grocery store parking lot.

by Josh Hornbeck

 

The video store I work at is right on the edge of downtown Seattle, complete with all the trials and tribulations one would expect to see in the big city – shoplifting, drunk customers, a homeless population living behind our building.  Now, it also borders one of the wealthier neighborhoods in Seattle – Queen Anne.  There’s actually a street called Highland Drive.  It’s fascinating to see these two worlds bump against each other as an arrogant, rich customer drives his new Lexus to pick up a copy of Without a Paddle and walks right past the bum begging for change in the parking lot.  But there, in the parking lot, the two opposing ends of the American class system are free to ignore and avoid each other.

 

However, once you actually step inside the store, the ability to hide from the “less desirable” members of society dramatically decreases.  In the confined quarters and narrow isles of video-tape heaven, it isn’t as easy to ignore, walk past, or step over the people you would routinely give wide berth to in the outside world.  One Thanksgiving (yes, we’re open on Thanksgiving and Christmas – the godless heathens) we had a different spread of customers than normal.  There were our regulars, then the people who only come in twice a year renting movies to avoid interactions with their families, and finally, a few homeless men who couldn’t find any other shelter from the cold.  When Mr. Lexus made a comment about the odor coming from an old man wandering aimlessly through our isles I was offended.  What right did some rich snob who had everything handed to him by daddy’s trust fund have to make fun of Stinky Pete?

 

We have a variety of homeless men and women that orbit about our store.  There are the bums that harass customers in the parking lot, offering to clean their windshields while they shop, getting offended when his generous offer is rejected.  There are the obnoxious drunks that stand in front of the store and shout obscenities at people as they come in and out of our building.  There are the jovial transients who will talk with you for an hour if you’re willing to stand there and listen.  And then there’s Johnny.

 

Johnny is the one of the older bums in the area and certainly the most experienced of the bunch.  He lives out in the alleyway behind our building under a covered loading dock shared by a bar, an Indian restaurant, and a liquor store.  With the cardboard he can scrounge from recycling bins, Johnny sleeps in relative shelter out of the rain.  Every time I’d take the trash out to our dumpsters, I’d inevitably run into Johnny.  And Johnny would always want to talk, waving around his Styrofoam coffee cup in the morning or his beer can in the afternoon as he gesticulated with wild abandon.

 

His mood always determined the manner of our conversation.  If he had yet to imbibe alcohol, Johnny would be a little more thoughtful.  If he was already three sheets to the wind, he might rant and rave about the city’s sports teams or shout out racial slurs.  But no matter what mood he was in, he was always ready to denounce the other homeless men in the area.

 

“They’re all queers and faggots!” he’d shout out.  “All of ‘em!  They’re gonna get killed one day.  But not me.  I’m too tough.  I’m too smart!  I survived a machine gun blast to the face in the war!  I can survive anything!”  I’ve never been able to discover what war it was that Johnny fought in.  It’s nearly impossible to determine his age – he could be sixty or seventy.  He could be forty.  The weathering of life on the streets has left its mark on him and I doubt if Johnny himself is certain of his age.

 

“They’re all a bunch of lazy bums!” he complained to me one afternoon.  I had just asked a group of intoxicated transients to please stop harassing my customers and to please find someplace else for their tailgate party.  After they politely moved on (once the police were called) Johnny came over.  “They’re all a bunch of drunk, lazy bums.  But not me!  I work.”  He waved his beer can about for emphasis.

 

My initial response was to point out the fact that he himself was living on the streets and didn’t have a job and was drunk more than half the times I had seen him.  But I stopped myself.  That wouldn’t be very nice.  And besides, Johnny really did work.  Granted, it was all minor maintenance for the alley he lived in – taking empty beer bottles from the bar and dumping them into the recycling bin, sweeping.  The alleyway can become a latrine for the area’s homeless and every morning for almost a year I would be outside shoveling trash and human excrement into our dumpster.  And every morning, Johnny was there to help me out.  “Dirty bums!” he’d shout out.

 

One day (perhaps he was a little more lucid than normal) Johnny approached me as I was emptying our outside drop-box.  “They found a guy dead behind the movie theater.”  His tone was somber.  “He was drunk and they stabbed him to death.”  He was saddened by the loss to his community, whatever else he may have said against the rest of the Queen Anne homeless.  And he was scared, too.

 

“Who stabbed him to death, Johnny?” I asked.  I look back at my question now with a stab of regret.  I didn’t honestly care who died or who killed whom.  I had more important things to take care of.  I had movies to check in.  I just didn’t want to seem rude.

 

Maybe Johnny sensed my lack of concern.  Or maybe Johnny lost his moment of lucidity.  Whatever the case may be, he responded with, “It was the Mafia!”

 

“Yeah?”  I stopped paying attention and found myself offering automatic responses.  I spoke in that tone of voice reserved for children and the mentally insane.  He was obviously crazy.

 

“I knew some guys from the Mafia, but they never bothered me.  I kept to myself.  They killed Kennedy, you know?”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yep.  They killed John Kennedy ‘cause he wanted to pull out of Vietnam.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

“But why’d they kill Bobby Kennedy?  I’ve never been able to figure that one out.”

 

Every time I’d come back inside after a visit with Johnny, I’d recount the pearls of wisdom or the interesting trivia he taught me.  And I’m good enough with impressions that I was always able to imitate the ways Johnny would tell his stories.  I started joking with my employee while I took out the trash I was going to “get drunk with Johnny.”  The first couple of times there was a slight twinge of guilt when I’d make the reference, but then it just became automatic.  It was one of those terrible things you say but don’t mean.  Like, “I’m gonna kill you.”  Or, “You’re fired.”   Or, “Why don’t you die already you miserable, old hag!”  Getting drunk with Johnny became my store’s terrible thing we say but don’t mean.

 

I’d give Johnny a little bit of money every time he’d help me in the back alleyway.  But that, and occasionally listening to his ravings, was the only contact with him I ever allowed.  One day, while taking the trash out and shouting out my customary, “Gonna go get drunk with Johnny in the alleyway,” Johnny approached me.  He was nervous and I could tell he had a question to ask me.  “Hey, Johnny?  What’s up?”

 

“Jason . . .” he began.

 

“It’s actually Josh.”

 

“You wouldn’t happen to have any old, warm jeans, would you?”

 

“No, I’m sorry Johnny.”  I feigned concern, when the truth of the matter was, I probably did have some old jeans I could have given him.  I just didn’t want to go out of my way.  I’m a busy person after all.

 

“Okay.  Thanks anyway.  If you come across any, let me know.  It’s getting cold out here.”

 

I smiled at him.  “Yep.  It sure is.”  I walked away and left him, standing in the cold.

 

I only work nights now, and Johnny isn’t in the alleyway much anymore.  I’ll see him occasionally, but I normally try to avoid any direct conversations.  My new job allows me complete freedom from the inconvenience of homelessness.  I don’t have to see it every day.  But every once in a while, I think about Johnny, and wonder if I couldn’t have done more – if I shouldn’t have done more – to help him out.

 

by Josh Hornbeck

 

The following essay contains potentially offensive language.

 

People are stupid.  There isn't any other way to put it.  I've been sitting at my computer for the last hour, trying to think of some other, less abrasive way to phrase this.  There just isn't.  People are dumb.  I admit, this happens to come from my own personal experience and I know that not everyone will have suffered the same trials and tribulations I’ve suffered.  But working in retail and customer service for the past three and a half years has only reinforced my personal belief in the stupidity of the American public.

 

I work at Blockbuster Video.  I've given up trying to qualify or explain my current occupation ("It's flexible and lets me do other things," "I'm just here until I get paid for my writing") and have finally come to terms with the sad fact that I am two years away from thirty and working a job that a chimp with a good grasp of sign language could do.  Blockbuster pays the rent and its best I just own up to it.

 

While most people love movies, they typically hate Blockbuster.  I'm not sure exactly why this is.  Maybe they think we all love handing out fees like candy.  Maybe it’s the feeling that anyone working in a video store must be a movie nerd and a nerd’s only purpose in life is to be abused on each and every occasion one can find.  Or maybe it's just that no one looks good in a blue and gold polo shirt with khaki pants.  Whatever the reason, every time I step behind the counter (often with a sigh) I prepare myself for constant abuse.

 

Because of this abuse, I’ve taken to hating my customer and treating them with a disdain equal to that which they shower on me.  One could make the argument that they treat me poorly because I treat them poorly, but that seems a little like the whole chicken/egg debate that’s been raging for centuries.  Which came first – the bitter employee or the abusive customer?  It always starts the same.  I do my best to be perky and happy with my customers, but as each argument about fees and each complaint about the artistic merits of White Chicks wears me down, I begin to get snippier and more frustrated until I’m an itchy finger poised above the nuclear launch button, ready and willing to explode at the slightest provocation.  Their pride and sense of entitlement makes me want to hurtle across the counter at times – going “video” as we in the industry call it.

 

The customers who get most upset are those who demonstrate the typical critical thinking skills taught by America’s educational system.  Now, our New Release Wall is organized alphabetically – which means that Anchorman is on the shelf before Catwoman.  So when a customer asks me where Troy is, I politely point them to the New Release Wall and say, “It should be on the New Release Wall.  All of our New Releases are organized in loose alphabetical order.”  Problem is, if one title gets mixed up, most customers aren’t able to reorient themselves to the alphabet without going back to the beginning of the store.  It’s actually kind of funny to watch them hitting that point on the wall where they can’t go any further.  They stand in shocked silence for a few moments and then resign themselves to starting over again.  After making the same circuit a few times, they eventually try to start from the end of the alphabet and work their way backwards, invariably hitting the same point in the wall and finally come up yelling at a clerk to grab their film for them.

 

One busy night several years ago, we had both registers operating and a large line of customers waiting for service.  My employee and I were doing our best to keep the line moving, but, like the hydras of Greek mythology, every time one customer was sent out the door two more stood appeared to take their place.  In the midst of this chaos and insanity, a gruff gentleman – Dennis was his name – decided to bypass the line and head straight for my register.  The irritated customers who had been waiting thirty seconds longer than they thought they should have began to scowl as little black rain clouds of anger appeared above their heads, darkening their features.  Worried about the possibility of a video-related riot, I politely told the gentleman that “the line actually starts behind you” and “would you mind moving to the back of the line instead of cutting in front of everyone.”  Murder was in his eyes, but he silently gathered his films and pushed through the irritated customers and their rain-clouds to stand at the back.

 

When Dennis returned to the front, his face was an iron curtain of rage.  I began to help him, asking him how his day was and how he found everything that night.  Dennis responded with, “You better get that damn line fixed right now.”

 

“Excuse me, sir?”  I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly.

 

“You heard me just fine.  Get that line fixed right now.”  His face was turning deeper and deeper shades of red and purple.

 

“I’m really sorry, sir.  We’re in the middle of some remodeling and things are in transition right now.”

 

This was true.  Every six months the corporate heads in Dallas decide they’ll completely change the store around just to keep us from complacency or even just the small comfort that comes from knowing you can do your job well.  During this particular remodel, our district manager had been changing the configuration of our check-out line nearly every week to find the one that worked best.

 

“I don’t care what’s going on!  You get this sorted out now or there’ll be hell to pay!”

 

In my small group of friends from church, we talked about whether we were exploders or bottlers when it comes to anger.  I’m a bottler.  When someone starts shouting at me I start shutting down.  And it happened with Dennis.  I became very silent, staring intently at my computer screen and keyboard.  I began to check his movies out with a speed and efficiency I rarely possess.  My fingers pounded with violent precision into the keyboard.

 

“The Red Shoe Diaries 10 and Forbidden Lust will both be due back on Friday at noon.  That will be eight dollars and twenty-four cents.”

 

He held a twenty dollar bill out in his hand.  I took it from him as quickly as I could.

 

“Don’t grab that out of my hand, you rude little bastard!”

 

I paused as he questioned my legitimacy.  Feeling myself begin to shake with rage (the lid to the bottle ready to explode), I took several deep breaths.

 

“I’m sorry, sir.  I didn’t mean to be rude and grab that out of your hand.  I apologize.  I’m doing my best to be polite to you but it’s very difficult when you keep yelling at me – ”

 

“YOU ARE NOT BEING POLITE!!!  THIS IS THE WORST SERVICE I’VE EVER RECEIVED!!!”

 

I went back to silence.  I placed his change on the counter and threw his movies into a bag, setting them on the exit side of our alarm system.  With one last deep breath I forced a smile and said, “Have a great night!”  He swooped up his bags and left the store telling me what I could do to myself.

 

I’m down to one or two nights a week at the old video “shoppe.”  I work another job that I’m paid well for (though not well enough to quit Blockbuster).  It is, perhaps, the best job I’ve ever had.  So when I go into Blockbuster now, I honestly don’t care as much.  I’m friendly and polite, but customer anger just doesn’t bother me much anymore.  They can get over it.  It’s just a movie.  It’s just a fee.  It’s just their car.

 

I know that last point sounds a little harsh, but let me explain.  We have one of the few free parking lots in the uptown area of Seattle.  Two blocks over is the Seattle Center – home to every major festival and event in the city.  There are plays, concerts, weekend festivals, sporting events.  There’s even an NBA team that plays their games in the area.  So whenever there’s an event at the center or a Sonics game at the Key Arena, everyone looks for free parking – parking that doesn’t cost ten to twenty dollars for the night.  They park in our lot, even though we have signs up warning them that they will be towed if they are not currently shopping at Blockbuster.

 

Just last week there was a Sonics game while I was working.  Our parking lot was full and customers were complaining, so one of my employees went out to mark the cars to be towed.  After half an hour she marked them again.  In another fifteen minutes she marked them again.  Any car with two chalk marks on the tires had already been there for  forty-five minutes.  Once she had filled out the necessary paperwork, checked the marked cars with customers in the store, checked with the patrons of the nearby businesses and called the towing company – another fifteen minutes to half and hour had passed before the tow truck arrived.  So the cars being towed had been in our lot for more than an hour before they were actually hooked up and taken out of the lot.

 

This was eight-thirty.  At eleven o’clock a group of well-to-do gentlemen entered the store and began yelling at the employee who had towed their vehicle.  Being the manager on duty at the time, I was also called to the front to receive the full force of their ballistic assault.  They had, apparently, just discovered their car was missing and it was going to cost two hundred fifty dollars to get it out of impound and one of them, Mark, was making a rather large fuss about it.

 

“I’m very sorry, sir, but we do wait until the car has been in our lot for more than an hour before we call the towing company.”

 

“So you authorized the car to be towed?”

 

“Yes, sir, I did.  It was parked there for more than an hour when we had it towed and if you’re just noticing it now, it probably would have stayed there for three and a half hours.”

 

“What’s your name?  What’s your supervisor’s name?”

 

I gave him both and, as he continued to rant, I began to feel the blood in my face rise and my body trembled with frustration.

 

“What right did you have to tow our car?  You’re opening yourself up to a huge liability here!  This is unacceptable!  If anything’s missing from our car you’re responsible for it!”

 

I took a few calming breaths and spoke as firmly as I could without shouting.  “Sir.  We do have signs up that tell you what will happen if you park in our lot and are not a Blockbuster customer.”

 

“How long have those signs been up?”

 

“As long as I’ve been here – nearly four years.”

 

He hemmed and hawed for a moment before exploding again.  “I’m former law enforcement!  You can’t just do that!  This is . . .  This is unacceptable!”  His friends had already left in the middle of his tirade.  “This must be that ‘Blockbuster’ customer service I’ve heard so much about!”

 

I’d had enough.  Besmirch the company.  Besmirch me or my employee.  But don’t you dare besmirch my legendary customer service skills.  “Sir, I’m very sorry, but you should have read the signs and just paid the ten dollars it costs to park at the Seattle Center.”

 

“Yeah.  I guess I should have,” he shouted as he stormed out to meet up with his embarrassed friends, waiting to catch a cab to the impound yard.

 

I’ve done a lot of thinking about both of these gentlemen and their angry tirades.  I was so angry at them at first, but now I’ve come to believe that they were victims of our culture’s stupidity mixed up with some pride and a belief that they are entitled to anything they want.  Both were confronted with obvious and clearly stated rules which they conveniently chose to ignore.  Dennis saw the line of people – how could he have missed it? – but chose to go straight to my register because he felt he didn’t need to wait behind the others.  Mark and his friends chose to ignore the signs which clearly say, “Parking While Shopping At Blockbuster Only, All Others Will Be Impounded.”  When both were faced with the consequences of ignoring those signs and societal rules (being sent to the back of the line, having their car towed) they became embarrassed.  Their pride was wounded.  And when their pride was wounded they felt the need to lash out at the first person they could – the lowly Blockbuster clerk who really doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this crap.

 

But is it all their fault?  We are a culture that expects everything to be handed to us on a silver platter.  If you make enough money, people will faun over you and trip over themselves to be subservient and cater to your every whim.  So can I really blame Dennis when he thought he shouldn’t have to wait in a line?  Lines are for people who aren’t important.  And Mark probably thought no one would dare tow his expensive P.T. Cruiser.  If someone drives this kind of a car around, they shouldn’t be subjected to tickets, parking fees or towing expenses, should they?

 

So, I implore you, dear reader, be gentle and understanding to those who serve you.  Don’t just assume that people must cater to your every whim.  Read the signs and follow rules and societal conventions.  And don’t get bent out of shape when you’re faced with the consequences of breaking those rules and conventions.

 

Wait a minute.  Where’s my car?  That stupid waiter at the restaurant better not have towed it while I was writing this at the Starbucks across the street!  If he did there’ll be hell to pay!

by Josh Hornbeck

 

While I was home this Christmas, I got to sit behind the wheel of my parents's car.  I slid myself into the seat for the first time and gripped the steering wheel.  It felt so right to be in the driver's seat again.  The comfortable interior, the purring of the engine . . .  It was a perfect moment.  No, my folks don't own a sports car, a classic convertible, or even a simple, new set of wheels with all the bells and whistles.  Nope, my parents own two decent but old, unspectacular automobiles.

 

The reason I get so excited about driving is that I don't own a car here in Seattle.  There isn’t really a reason to.  Seattle has one of the best public transportation systems in the country and I can get nearly anywhere in the city with no hassle.  Parking – especially downtown – is impossible and with gas and insurance prices steadily increasing, you need a small fortune to own car nowadays.  I get a free bus pass through work so I can get around without spending anything.  It's a great situation.

 

But I miss driving.  I didn't realize how much I missed it until the ignition turned over and I pulled out of the driveway.  There's something about the smooth turn of the wheel, guiding two tons of metal down the road.  I think I missed the power most of all, the realization that I held the keys to life and death in my hands.

 

I started volunteering to go to the store for anything.  I looked for every opportunity to get back behind the wheel.  I began to contemplate the merits of purchasing a car, going further into debt and possibly neglecting my student loans.  Having a car would make life so much easier!

 

I turned into the parking space outside Safeway and switched off the ignition.  Arming the automatic locks, I went on my errand within the grocery store confines as quickly as possible, anxious to get behind the wheel again.  I shot down the aisles, grabbing the three very specific soda brands my parents had asked for – Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew.  As I approached the front of the store I made a quick assessment of the lines and the speed with which I would be able to get through it and back on the road.

 

It only took a moment to choose the appropriate line.  There were lines that had too many old ladies with coupons, lines with that guy holding his stack of lottery tickets, the line with the mother and her shopping cart full of a month's groceries – four children hanging off the corners like primates. Those were all lines that would keep me from the freedom I was itching to get back to.  Making the appropriate selection (a few more people in line, but all with one or two items), I zipped through checkout and headed back to my golden (okay, off-white) chariot.

 

I placed the grocery bags on the floor and climbed back into my seat of power.  I inserted the key and turned.  Nothing.  The engine didn't turn over and sputter.  It didn't click or struggle to rev up.  There was absolutely no response from the giant piece of metal sitting motionless in Flagstaff’s Safeway parking lot.

 

I did everything I could think of to fix the problem.  I wiggled the keys in the ignition.  I moved the car in and out of gear.  I even shook the steering column in my frustration.  Nothing worked.  I finally gave up trying to fix it on my own and just called my father.  He ran me through a similar set of checks, seeing if I happened to miss anything.  With still no response from the vehicle in question, he came down with all of his automotive tools.

 

As I sat waiting for the benevolent aid of my father, I said to myself, "This is the reason I don't have a car."  As much as I may have missed life behind the wheel, I had forgotten my family's history of car trouble.  This current issue (which was resolved by cleaning connections between the battery and the engine) wasn't even the first one I saw during my three week vacation.  Just the day before, my sister was driving our father's car and got a flat tire.  Later on in the week my mother's car overheated and blew its thermostat.

 

We call it the Hornbeck family curse.  Our cars are constantly breaking down.  In high school I drove a powder blue pacer – just like the car from Wayne's World.  The pacer (my favorite car of all time) was temperamental at best.  Driving back from Avala Beach at midnight, the car overheated (leaky radiator) and broke down an hour away from home.  Another time the brakes went out as I rounded a corner into a busy intersection.  Everyone should have the pleasure of being able to push their brakes all the way to the floor and still get no response.  It's fun.  Really, it is.

 

But for some reason I forget all about these troubles the moment I'm back behind the wheel after a long absence.  My little adventure over Christmas may have curbed my immediate desire for a car, but I'm beginning to think a car may be worth all the trouble.  There's nothing like a long road trip to relax you.  There's nothing like thinking in the car.  While I can get around, I'll make due with the buses.  But as soon as I can responsibly make the purchase I'm getting a vehicle of my own.  And a mechanic on call twenty-four hours a day.