After 28 years of middling service and disgruntled employees, former video rental giant Blockbuster has been brought to its knees, and local dad/VHS aficionado Steve Milton has never been happier. Renting a copy of Basic Instinct 2 after hearing a co-worker mention a scene where Sharon Stone exerts her feminine charms, Milton grabbed a copy of Over the Hedge for the kids, Syriana for his wife and him, and a copy of the Basic Instinct sequel for himself.
“That movie, god, no amount of stabbings could have saved it. I remember when I reached the credits. I was just angry, and I think the DVD player broke after I hit eject too hard. Long story short, it messed up that movie something fierce but I’ll be damned if I give that damn store any of my money to pay for a replacement disk. Go to hell James W. Keyes! ”
Steve decided right then to draw an ideological line in the sand and refused to submit himself to Blockbuster’s fascist policies. Dropping off the 2 DVDs in the drive-by return slot, Steve sped off and never looked back. For the past 6 years the Milton family has dodged Blockbuster phone calls, and Steve has shaken his fist whenever he passed a dreaded blue and yellow sign on his morning commute, never relinquishing control over his scratched erotic-thriller.
Never one to miss a good parenting opportunity, Steve often returns to the Basic Instinct 2 story when he needs to make a point.
“Dad was always trying to make everything relate to that old Blockbuster story,” reflects Steve’s oldest son, Daniel. “If it was missing curfew or not taking the dog out, it’d somehow always relate back to the struggle between ‘Dad and the big bad video rental store that allowed him to rent Basic Instinct’s clearly inferior successor without telling him that David Morrissey is no substitute for Michael Douglas.’”
The rapid decline from its illustrious mid-decade heights surprised many investors, but Steve Milton said that he always knew justice would be served in one sense or another. To him, a new CEO and addition of online rentals was only a band-aid fix for a company that clearly hates dads.
