So, I’ve been feeling a little antsy about the new Harry Potter book coming out in LESS THAN 24 HOURS. Dear lord help me if I make it until tomorrow before I explode into a happy cloud.

Before I launch into my story, let me defend myself by saying that at least this outlet of frustration at not having the book yet is better than, say, streaking around my apartment building naked. And it doesn’t involve the neighbors asking funny questions and/or the cops.

So today after work, I pull into a Family Video.

“Where are we?” Joanette says, looking at me and frowning.

“Family Video!” I say, smiling.

“But, this isn’t the Family Video that you normally go to…”

“It is now!” I say happily, getting out of the car and grabbing my movies. I go into the Family Video - the bell jingles happily.

“I would like to return these,” I say, already knowing what the cashier is going to do. This is officially my third Family Video I’ve gone to since the start of this summer. The cashier rings up my movies and frowns at the screen.

“You rented these movies here?” She asks politely, looking closely at the movies I’m trying to ‘return’.

“Oh, well yes of course, I always come here,” I say, trying to force a hint of indignity into my voice.

I actually drove by this Family Video twice because I couldn’t find it.

“Ah, of course. Sometimes our system…” The cashier waves her hand apologetically.

“Not a problem,” I say, trying hard not to smile.

“What’s your phone number?” She asks, after successfully entering the movies into the database. I tell her.

“You have an account here?” The cashier says, scrolling through the screens.

“Well, of course I do - how else would I have rented those movies?” I say, trying my best not to laugh.

“Hmmmm…we seem to have lost your account information as well!” The cashier says, a little impatiently.

“Oh not a problem - can I just sign up for another account?” I ask politely, trying to look innocent.

“Well, sure!” She says, before adding, “And I’m really sorry about this mishap.”

She breaks out the information and I happily fill out another sheet to open my third account at a Family Video.

“Alright, well then do you want to go on a tour of our Family Video now?” She says, grabbing a clipboard.

“No, you can just point at the sections,” I prompt. The faster the better, I always say. The cashier smiles.

“Have you signed up with us before…?” The cashier says, narrowing her eyes as if she is trying to figure out if I’m being truthful or not.

“I saw someone in here the other day signing up and the cashier just pointed, it went a lot quicker then when I signed up here before and had to go on a tour,” I lied quickly. She nods slowly and finally starts to give me the “tour” by pointing at each of the sections, describing how each of them works.

“And as a new member of Family Video, you get a free month’s subscription to our half-off program!” The cashier concludes enthusiastically.

“Oh, what’s that?” I say in mock surprise.

“It’s where you can rent as many movies as you want, and we take off 50 percent from the price of all of those movies for a month. It’s our way of saying ‘thank you’ to those who sign up for a new account.”

“Oh how nice!” I say, trying hard not to laugh as I remember this is my third “50-percent off” month I’ve received from a Family Video.

“And I’m really sorry about that database error; as compensation I can give you three free movie rentals if you want to choose some now?” She asks politely, typing into the screen.

“Oh that would be fantastic,” I say, smiling broadly. I choose three more movies and am on my way!

I get back into the car and burst into a fit of giggles, handing the new movies to Joanette.

“I ran out of my 50 percent-off month a few days ago,” I say, shrugging. Joanette laughs.

“So you decide to go to another Family Video?”

“Hey, is it MY fault that they don’t connect their databases to the other Family Video’s? Noooo…”

“So what does it mean that their ‘databases aren’t connected’?” She says, looking at my newly acquired movies and laughing again.

“It means that I can sign up for an account at as many Family Video’s as I want, because none of them are connected through the information they store about their customers!”

I actually found this out by accident about a month ago when I went looking for a Chinese place and instead found an out-of-the-way Family Video. Since I had my movies with me and I needed to return them anyways, I did pretty much the exact same thing I did today.

Joanette just shook her head and told me that I should focus my creativity on something constructive instead of conning Family Video’s, like making a full-scale replica of the Apollo 11 space shuttle out of macaroni.

I think I’ll try that tomorrow while waiting for the Harry Potter book to arrive on my doorstep.

I’m driving home from work today, and I’m coming up to what I know is a quick light - it’s green, but not for much longer. And, as I get up to it, the light turns yellow. Knowing that it is a fast light, I hit my brakes - fairly hard.

I come to a halt, and I hear a loud screeching behind me. I look in the rearview mirror and I see a small Toyota car getting larger and larger in my mirror.

As if in slow motion, I see the woman’s eyes get really big as she is practically on top of my car, holding her steering wheel out at arms length. She jerks her wheel to the right, and comes skidding to a halt in the lane right next to mine, merely inches away.

“What in the hell were you doing stopping for?” She gets out of her car, yelling so loudly I can hear her through my closed windows. I get out of my car as well.

“Um…it turned yellow,” I say, going around to the side of the car where she almost hit my side mirror on.

“You were speeding up I thought!” She yells, grabbing her hair.

“I decided to stop because this light is fast changing colors!” I raise my voice slightly. The woman is wearing a full suit, driving one of those yuppie Toyota’s that they all have. I start to inspect my dad’s car.

“You need to learn how to drive,” She spits at me, examining her own car.

“God, this isn’t even my car…” I moan, hoping that nothing is wrong. As far as I can tell, not even a scratch.

“You are such a dumbass,” The woman yells, apparently coming to the conclusion that her car is also alright.

Suddenly, a cop car comes slowly through the intersection. He looks over, sees us both out of our cars, and stops his vehicle.

“What’s going on here?” The cop says in his authoritative voice.

“This idiot almost caused a car accident!” The woman says, pointing at me dramatically.

“What happened?” He says, examining my car.

“Well, the light had just turned yellow, so I put on the brakes-”

“SLAMMED - Slammed on the brakes,” The woman interjects.

“Well, I knew it was a quick light!” I defend myself.

“You are such a god damn idiot, aren’t you?” She says, her voice level rising. She calls me a few choice other names as well before the cop stops her.

“Ma’am, if the light turns yellow, it means you are supposed to stop,” He says pointedly.

“Well this asshole almost caused me to rear end her because I thought the bitch was going through the yellow light!” The woman says, her eyes popping slightly.

“Ma’am, there is no visible damage, that I can see, but by law you are required to give this young lady your insurance information,” He says to the yuppie woman. The woman stops gibbering about how I almost caused the accident, and resentfully hands over her insurance information.

“Now, would either of you like to file an accident report?” He says. The light for our street has turned green, and I hear the cars behind me honking a lot for us to get moving. I shake my head.

“That won’t be necessary,” I say, looking to the yuppie. She looks like she’s have an inner battle of wills about what to say, and in the end she doesn’t say anything and just gets in her car, waves her hand at the cop and peels away. I thank the cop for stopping and drive away as well.

Some people can be real jerks.