You Will Never Find a More Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy.

Okay, in fairness to Edna from yesterday's post, I have a confession to make. The other day at Target I lost it, too. Although, in my defense, it was only two restocking red-shirters who heard me and not a line of ravenous nine-to-fivers.

After only one viewing, SGK lost the Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi DVD from our boxed set. You remember the boxed DVD set that came out a while back? The one that was marketed with the slogan 'available for a limited time only'. And the retail rumor-mill said Lucas was going to take a page from Disney and make the old Star Wars DVDs only available off and on for short periods and you may not have another crack at them for a decade. So I bought them. I bought them with the full knowledge that the movie distributing bast*rds knew they were lying. This I know because they said the same thing when the VHS came out in the mid-1990s to the tune of $200 or so, right before they rereleased all them movies in the theater and reissued the VHS for about half the price.

So, yes, I bought the boxed set of DVDs even though I was extremely annoyed that Lucas only released the stupid doctored-up versions and acted like Episode IV: A New Hope was the same movie I sat through 43 times in the summer of '77. It clearly was not. And don't start in with "It's his movie, he can do what he wants with it." Well, around my family's vicious card table, "A card laid is a card played." DaVinci didn't go back and put sunglasses on Mona Lisa. I don't care if he makes Episode IV: A New Hope so long as I can watch Star Wars any time I want without all of the silly muppets cgi'ed into it. And you had to buy the boxed set because another maxim at the time was that they would only ever be available as a set. And only in the Digitally Remastered version.

So, of course, I was miffed when SGK lost our Jedi. And then last weekend I saw an ad which explained that Eps IV, V, and VI would be available separately for a limited time. I mean what is it with these people? And you know I was there the next morning at Target to complete my set because, gd it, it's only available for a limited time! I got there about the time they were opening and the sleepy stock clerks were overstuffing the shelves for a big Saturday. I whisked my lighter, suit-capable self over to the electronics section and quickly located the Jedis. My approach took me between two unenthused stockers and I quickly extracted my copy, looked it over to make sure I got VI, not IV and then I saw it. The Sticker. There was a prism-backed sticker which gleefully beamed back to me the words "Includes original theatrical release!" I wasn't as bad as Edna but I said very loudly, "What?! They said they weren't going to do this! Why did they do this?!" Because now I have to buy IV, too! I turned in the direction of one of the clerks. She didn't look like she was alive in '77. I turned to the other one and began to plead for...something. And she was like a cop. She actually reached near her hip for her walkie-talkie. I just stopped short and smiled and she smiled back. I tucked it under and as I walked away I threw over my shoulder, "You shouldn't mess with Star Wars."