Tired of being ripped off

Blah. I rented a video from my neighborhood Hollywood Video (on Wilson Blvd. in Arlington), watched it, and returned it in the drop box in the morning. The next day I get a cryptic call from an unnamed employee saying the box was missing its DVD.

I'm not the kind of person to forget something like that, especially considering I used to work in a video store myself. I looked around the house and car in case I'd misplaced the disc, but to no avail.

Naturally, nobody I call can help me, and they all refer me to the store manager, who's only around on weekdays. I was dreading the confrontation, but it went about as well as I could have hoped; he only charged me $10 for the missing disc and called it square.

But still, blah. I know I returned the disc in the drop box about an hour before they opened, which probably means that one of their employees either misplaced the disc or outright stole it, but I couldn't convince the store manager that I hadn't just misplaced it somewhere like a moron.

Oh, and you'll be glad to know that my situation fulfilled Murphy's Law of Video Rentals: that the film you lose and wind up having to pay for is as embarrassing to your psyche as possible.

Now that I've closed my account there to prevent further rip-offs (and I'm still getting letters from the corporate office telling me to return the video), I'm not sure what to do about renting movies. Maybe Netflix, although I hear it has its issues as well. I've been to Video Vault in Alexandria, which reminds me somewhat of my beloved Movies Worth Seeing in Atlanta, but the distance and lack of accessibility (little parking and short hours), combined with short rental period and annual membership fee (!) keep me from frequenting that store, quirky as it may be.