Blockbuster Blues

Unlike those folks who use Netflix, I get my movies-in-the-mail from Blockbuster, which goes back to when I was in college and had at least five Blockbuster stores I passed regularly when traveling by bus, and I used to get two free in-store rentals per month as part of my subscription. Now, there are only two or three stores nearby (and none of them any closer than fifteen minutes drive), so I've dropped that part of my subscription. But I still get the movies by mail, and for the most part I enjoy what I see, except for the odd occasion where I completely forget why I put a movie in my queue by the time I actually receive it (not that I don't enjoy it, but I do wonder about myself sometimes).

Lately, though, I've been faced with a slightly frustrating situation. You see, over this week, I've received three DVDs, but none of them are the ones I put at the top of my queue. What bothers me about this is simply that I put two movies at the very top, so as to get them next. Both are listed as Available, so availability shouldn't be a problem. And yet, as each DVD was returned and new ones sent out, those two were skipped. I understand that there's more to the DVDs being sent than just running down a list, but still, it's very vexing. One, I could understand, but both of them being skipped three times?

Now, my subscription is the three-at-a-time variety, and yet, I was surprised to get two discs in the mail today, since I already had one and had just put one in the mail to go back. Well, earlier this week, I reported that a DVD I had returned hadn't shown up on my profile page yet, and I'd sent it in two weeks before (and another DVD I'd returned since then had already shown up). So they sent the next DVD (but not, you know, the next DVD. Or, come to think of it, the DVD of Next, although they did send that to me once by accident) that day. So now I'm guessing that the DVD I returned finally made it back there, and so they sent another DVD anyway. Except, they sent a DVD that they already sent (the same one, I think, that they sent when I reported that DVD missing in the first place). This could be an indication that the computer system over there has gotten slightly messed up, which could very well be why the two DVDs I want keep being skipped over. But really, I'd better get those movies soon.