101 NEW Uses for Best Buy

On Friday night, a few friends and I made plans to go see 28 Weeks Later.

Generally going to see a movie is a simple process. You pick a theatre, you pick a time, and you go see the movie. However, before we could see 28 Weeks Later, Ryan needed to see 28 Days Later. So we ate dinner and then went to Blockbuster to rent it. But the one copy they had was checked out. Around this time it began pouring rain. It's been raining in Dallas for more than two weeks straight now, more rain than I've ever seen for such a prolonged period of time, and I grew up in an area of the country commonly referred to as "Green Country." This much rain is highly unusual for Dallas, but we're so used to it by now that we felt no qualms about carrying on with our plan. In the torrential downpour, we decided to just buy the damn movie, so we drove to Target. For whatever reason, Target doesn't carry the movie. So we got in the car again and drove up the highway to Best Buy.

On the way, the rain got even harder so that the people on the highway were going about 25 miles per hour. By some dire lack of common sense, the engineers who planned this particular highway, the one that cuts right through the middle of Dallas, planned it to be subterranean. Usually, this is fine. Because as I said, usually, it doesn't rain this much in Dallas. However, in a torrential downpour, a subterranean highway equals several inches of standing water. As we drove north, we saw the traffic headed south stretch for miles and miles. We knew there was no going back, at least not anytime soon. It was 8 p.m. by now, and our movie was at 10:20. We brainstormed.

In the end, we decided that we would watch the movie at Best Buy.

I told the boys that, if need be, I would be willing to use my womanly wiles. It's been a while since I've had to be overly persuasive, but I knew I could make it happen because we were desperate.

Turns out it was unnecessary. We walked into Best Buy, grabbed the movie, found a private back room of the Magnolia home theatre center, unwrapped the movie, popped it into the DVD player hooked up to the system, and took our seats.

About five minutes into the film, a Best Buy sales clerk wandered into the room. He looked up at the screen and gasped, then asked us if we were watching a real movie. We said "yes," and he told us that if anyone asked, we were interested in buying the $5,000 projector we were using. Then he turned down the lights and shut the door to our room. We looked at each other in silent astonishment, mouths gaping, and then continued our movie.

A half hour later, another sales clerk opened the doors and came inside to show a couple the other system in the room. When the clerk turned the TV on, which was positioned directly behind our screen, he saw that the light washed out our movie. He told the couple that he'd have to show them another system so as not to disturb us, and on their way out, the man asked what movie we were watching. I leaned back and told him 28 Days Later. As they closed the doors behind them, I heard him tell his lady friend, "Man, we should do THAT next Friday."

We watched as much of the movie as we could, which was about an hour and a half, and then drove across the highway to catch 28 Weeks Later. Which, by the way, gave me zombie nightmares all that night.

The internet is chock full of bad customer service stories about Best Buy, but I'm here to tell you that on Friday night last, we found the sales clerks at that particular Best Buy very accommodating indeed.

Ry got comfy.

And Chad got thrilled.