I am a huge fan of Netflix. We have been using Netflix to satisfy our movie habit for the past 3 years and have found that they are always dependable – providing us with our fix exactly when we need it… most of the time. The exception to Netflix’s dependability would have to be when it comes to renting an entire multi-disk season of one of TV’s favorite shows. Netflix is always able to provide us with the DVDs that we put on our queue in a timely manner, the problem, however, is when we have to wait for that pesky next disk to continue our affair with an Emmy winning series we never cared to watch when it was actually airing. What do we do? We can’t wait 3 whole days to find out what happens! Will they get off the Island? Will Hiro Nakamura help save the cheerleader and save the world?

A few years ago, we were stuck with the first season of Lost. We had 2 disks at the house and watched every episode straight without stopping… until we ran out. We proceeded to call every video store in the area to see if they had Disk 3. We found one, went at 9:30 PM on a Saturday evening to pick up the DVD. Last year we did the same with Heroes. We couldn’t possibly wait to see what happened, and season two was starting later that week – we had no other choice. This weekend we found ourselves backed in the corner again… this time with Showtime’s hit series Weeds***. Unfortunately, this time it was not so easy….

We pulled up to the closest location of the biggest video rental location in the area (let’s just call them "Clockbuster") around 6 PM on Saturday. We proceeded over to the couple of shelves that house TV’s best. I quickly scanned the un-alphabetized DVD cases – Queer as Folk, Dexter, Six Feet Under (my favorite), Big Love, The Simpsons… where’s Weeds? I turned to my wife and said, calmly, “I’ll go ask.” She said, “OK. I’m going to walk around to get ideas for our Netflix Queue.”

I approached the blonde haired high school girl behind the counter (whose eyelids were slightly closed and her gaze off somewhere far away from "Clockbuster").
“Do you have Weeds? You know, the show that is on Showtime?”
She stared back at me for a second before responding, “We don’t have that show here.” Surprised, I asked, “Why not?”
She sat up a bit and said, “I don’t know. We should have it. It’s stupid.”

Her manager was looming in the background like a Priest at a child's birthday party, and after hearing her comment felt compelled to intervene. He was probably in his mid-twenties, hair parted to the side and his polo was tucked ever so neatly into his pleated khaki pants. His mouth opened and the following words escaped, “we don’t carry that show here. This is a family oriented neighborhood so we wouldn’t carry that series.”

Considering that I live less than 5 minutes from that particular Clockbuster, I was fully aware that I live in a very family oriented suburb. I didn’t know what else to say but, “you have Queer as Folk, Dexter, The L Word. Although I believe all of those shows are harmless, how could you carry them and not Weeds?” I think this might have been the first time that the guy ever had anyone question his "holier-than-thou" attitude and so he simply said, “I don’t know. Try a bigger store.”

The nice blonde girl behind the counter called a store 10 minutes away (about 7 minutes from my house nestled in the “family oriented community”) where they had both the second disk of Season 1 and all of Season 2 on the morally loose shelves. My wife and I left that Clockbuster, never to return again. She capped her pen and slid it back into her purse and read me a list of movie titles that she thought seemed interesting.

*** I feel compelled to point out that it is not because I watch Weeds that I am a pothead. I have never touched the stuff, but don't personally have a problem with other people enjoying themselves as long as they don't drive and kill someone while under the influence.