Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to my needlessly long-winded and whiny, but unjust all the same:
VOLUME THREE TALE OF WOE
Part One
When the volumes first started coming out, I was not ready to spend/save that much money, and I also felt I had recently bought "Shorts" on VHS, and still had plenty of the source eps on off-air recorded VHS.
But I bought volume 4 once I had enough dough, and "Overdrawn" is a great episode. I kept buying through 10, and am looking forward to 11.
I missed the Great Amazon Discount, but I thought I'd put Volumes 1-3 on my "to buy" around xmas. And earlier in the year, I had entered the Borders Rewards program, as it saved up "holiday dollars", and I had enough of those holiday dollars to purchase one of the earlier sets.
So I reserved Volume 3 using the BordersStores.com site, seeing that it was in stock at my local.
I went in today to buy it, it was there, holiday dollars spent, happy customer.
I took it home, tore off the wrapping, and immediately something didn't seem right. (cue eerie music) The edges of the side of the box you slide the inner case out of looked...worn. Granted, Volume 3 is old, so it's entirely possible that it's been stored and re-stocked several times, except...shouldn't the wrapping protect it from that?
I had almost forgotten about the fun "door" flaps on the front, and played with those a bit, trying to distract myself from the eerie feeling I was getting. It's a pretty cute deal, even if it's not totally representative of the real doors.
So I slid out the inner package, and unfolded it once, and again, there was wear on the inside. Someone had added a dab of glue to keep these two halves from flying apart (which seems unlikely), and in opening them, the glue had torn part of the paper on the cardboard. Again, odd, but not disastrous.
And then I unfolded one flap...and to my horror:
NO DVD
other side
NO DVD
open up the last flap
NO DVD
other side
NO DVD
BUM BUM BUMMMMMMM!!!!!!!
I screamed! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!! (ok I didn't.)
I called Borders back immediately.
"I just bought a DVD boxset and it's empty."
"Wow. I'm sorry sir, which set was it?"
"MST3K vol 3."
"Ok, give me a moment...we don't have any more of those in stock."
"Oh, well that's fine, I saw you had a Volume 2 on the shelf, same price, so I'd be ok with exchanging."
"I'm sorry sir, but store policy is to only exchange for the exact item when the package has been opened."
"Um...the only way I could find out that you sold me an empty box was to open it."
"I know sir, but it is store policy."
"I reserved this and used my Borders Rewards holiday dollars to purchase this, which required me to spend lots of money this year, does that help?"
"I'm sorry, it's store policy. What I can do is order you a new one...looks like it'll be in next Sunday."
"So what do I do at that point -- should I just bring everything in, receipt and all?"
"Call us first when we notify you, to make sure it's here, then yes, bring everything in."
So, knowing how scarce Volumes 1-3 are, I'm guessing they won't be able to get it ordered. You can therefore be guaranteed that I will be back next week with another:
VOLUME THREE TALE OF WOE
Until then, enjoy your Sidehackers, and weep for me