Red Box

Hold the phone, because in the past two weeks, I have rented three movies! While unfortunately none of those movies were Captain America , all three were very good. Better yet, thanks to the next generation of home movie viewing, these three movies cost just $1.50 each! Life has never been so good! So I would like to send a big Thank You to Red Box!

Ahh… I remember the good old days when a gallon of gas was just $1 and you could rent a movie for just $4. Well, today, gas costs $4 and, with the conveniently-located Red Box, movie rentals only cost $1! It is so cheap that I don’t feel guilty upgrading to blu-ray for an extra $.50. That is however a per night price, which is fine by me. It wasn’t like I was going to Blockbuster and spending $4 with the thought, “Oh, this will be great to watch three nights from now.”

The other side of this per night pricing is that you have to get back to a conveniently located Red Box to return your movie the next day. So if you are like me, it becomes a problem as you rent a movie on a Friday night and then don’t go anywhere the next day because of this:

It suddenly is 7 o’clock on Saturday night and you still need to return the movie, and more importantly, find something to do that night, so you rent another movie. In this way, you kill two birds with one conveniently-located-Red-Box-shaped stone! How great is that? Oh, but it gets better, as I can kill a third bird with Red Box! Do wonders never cease!

You see, at 7 o’clock, I still haven’t eaten dinner. There’s a chance I haven’t even had lunch! My stomach’s growling, and since I am going out anyways, thanks to Red Box, I pick up some tasty take-out for dinner. Luckily, there’s an awesome Italian place right next to our conveniently-located Red Box! To say the least, my wife and I have been eating well the past two weekends. All thanks to a box full of movies.

An argument could be made, in fact, that conveniently-located Red Boxes are the great savior to the local economy that will rebuild the American dream back into American hearts. Of course, with the convenient solution to dinner these movie rentals cost about $25 a pop, which is neither saving my economics nor building any of my dreams. And, that tasty take-out can’t be very good for my heart either.