Next Week, I Moniter The Growth Of Tadpoles Into Frogs

Since I may or may not have a problem with an aforementioned bout of forgetfulness here and there, I never ever manage to watch prime time sitcoms regularly. People around me in class, or friends when I'm out, will always talk about the latest episode of such and such where some troubled guy or girl is smoking crack, shooting someone, being a slut, or involved in some other very unpredictable story twist. Essentially I abstain from watching these shows, and having to admit that I have an insatiable addiction, all because of my own retardation. It's as though I have this built in mechanism that saves me from jumping on bandwagons, or getting caught up in trends that result in the purchase of The OC barbies.

Carmen : 1, Media executives trained to pin me as a demographic : 0.

Alas, I write this in hindsight because those execs are smarter than I thought. They put the episodes TOGETHER, so you can watch them in 24 hour long marathon sequences, on little pieces of rainbow-y circles called DVD's. How dare they swat at my achilles heel? And make it cost money? More money than the free-ness that was on TV? I throw up my hands in defeat; I'm LOST...

That intro could only lead to the painful reality that was myself and Allan in the let down of Tuesday night. When we pulled up to Rogers Video I felt good, I knew that my fix was near and man, was I fiending. We looked in the usual section, "TV", but couldn't find it, our beloved, ADDICTIVE show. I'm sorry, Emo Rogers Worker, what do you mean, LOST isn't "in". IS LOST LOST?

I was devestated to say the least, and when the shock of our situation began to wear off, the realization of something else rolled in. We were a couple, milling around, grazing in Rogers Video, looking for our night's plans just like a million other couples. Movie rental places, like nowhere else (except maybe the grocery store on a friday night) make you feel like a grand loser. Everyone mopes, adjusts their sweatpants, and eventually someone says something like "Well you're just gonna have to pick between this Hilary Duff movie and your Denzel Washington one." The implications, consequences, and internal battles being fought seem to resonate of the walls there. The place reeks of disagreement and last minute plans.

I think the video store experience would have been OK, survivable, if Mr. I-sat-near-you-in-highschool-english-class didn't come up and have an akward conversation. I recognized him, but had no delusions about the extent of our friendship. It bothered me that he didn't abide to the unwritten rules of video store etiquette (#37 - Akward conversations should be avoided at all costs, this includes but is not limited to, people you used to sit near in previous classes.)

"Oh Carmen, hey!" he said as he gave my boyfriend a "manly" head nod.

"Ooooh. Hi."

"What have you been up to lately, well besides renting movies."

"You know, working in the summer, going to school."

"Yeeeah, me to, working TWO jobs, and going to school, so you know."

I got out of that situation as fast as possible, but couldn't help feeling that he had pushed me over the edge. Him and his trophy girlfriend, the one he never had in highschool, me and my boyfriend, just having a conversation in the TV aisle of a video store. It gave me an overwhelming loser feeling. I'm young, wasn't I supposed to be snorting lines off the hood of my friends car? Or maybe dancing on tables with a moose hat on thinking that this, this is where it's at. I should be riding down streets on a bike that I just stole from a snotty eight year old, a bike with no brakes and a unicorn bell. I should be getting ugly chinese character tattoos symbolizing "peace" and then regretting them five months later.

But maybe then, the media execs would catch on, they'd see the "trends of the young" and make a new hit show called "Sk8ter Girlz" with rampant drug use, careless acts of deviance, bandanas tide around heads; and I'd hate for them to pin my demographic once again. So for that, I'll remain a big dork, having akward video store reunions, and knowing that no one, would ever, ever, make a show about that.