Isn’t it funny how something ‘free’ usually ends up being NOT? I opened a Redbox account through the Internet and did nothing. After receiving numerous email prompts and all the ads that make one crazy, I got an offer for a free movie for the night and decided to take it. I reserved the movie online and went in to a Redbox station and picked it up.

Plan: Watch movie and return within 24 hours so it really is free. Epic fail!

I watched the movie — the best part of it was the dialogue, it was quick and quippy, filled with sarcasm and slightly humorous. The story line was…well…like most story lines with an almost obvious ending — Veronica Mars. The next evening before the 9 PM deadline, I went back to Redbox. Had no idea what I was doing and asked a mom and her son how to return it since they were just finishing up grabbing their movies for the night. They pushed all the buttons for me, I put the box in the ‘in’ slot and left as they left. Did a little food shopping and headed home.

DING-DONG stupid alert went off when I walked into the house and realized I left the DVD in the damned bluray player. Then I went back to online help and found a chat person that told me the kiosk would have a ‘replacement box’ which I would have to pay for. Sweet! Already UNFREE! Plus I missed the return time deadline. I didn’t make it back to the kiosk until two days later. I forgot my cell phone when I left the house. Guess I need the double DING-DONG stupid alert on that one.

Hit the kiosk and started looking for a way to find the replacement disk and couldn’t see it. There were two kiosks next to each other and a gent that looks more elderly than I came to the other one. I asked him if he had any ideas about how to find the replacement box. Nope! He’d never done that. But he was overly helpful. Riot was with me and the gent handed over his phone so we could call support. His phone was so old I had no idea how to even make a call from it…no shit! I handed it to the gadget freak Riot and he found a way to dial it.

By this time two other gents that were together looking for movies came up, they were 30ish, and very helpful too…even though they were never dumb enough to leave the disk out of the box when they returned their movies, they set right to work, going through the FAQ screen on the kiosk and damned if they didn’t find the answer. The replacement box was $1.20. Got it, shipped the movie back, thanked those guys — all three of them profusely for their help — and headed home to find out my FREE movie cost me over $5.00.

The best part of it was that I love the way that most men will always help a woman if she asks. All three of them were gracious, cheerful, and restored a small piece of my jaded faith in humanity. Yes…I’m on the far side of dark and ugly when I look at the world around me and where we’re headed, but there’s still hope.

No more Redbox for a while. They sent me a follow-up on the day I returned the empty box and asked ‘how did we do?’ to which I wanted to reply, “you did great but I screwed up” but it was a survey. Phooie!

Tomorrow’s another day! Enjoy it and look for the good in humanity please. We need all the help we can get.