Goddamn it! I spent two years of my life waiting for *Citizen Kane *to come out on DVD. And when Amazon sent me that email saying it was available for preorder and I saw all those features and commentaries (two disks!), I was the happiest little girl in all the midwest. It was going to be the crown jewel of my growing DVD collection.
Greatest movie ever made! My personal favorite! Did I mention two disks?! Feature-length documentary?! Commentary by Roger Ebert?! I coveted this DVD.
It arrived about two weeks ago. I picked up the package on a Monday night before I went to work. I was barely able to restrain myself from popping the disk in right when I got home. But no. I wanted to wait until I had a free weekend to immerse myself in all the cool stuff. (Movie premiere newsreel! Storyboards!)
That DVD sat unopened on top of my monitor until tonight. The evening stretched before me…it was going to be just me, a bowl of popcorn, and the Mercury Production of Citizen Kane.
An hour later, the popcorn is gone and my happiness is shattered. On the tv? Saturday Night Live reruns. Why?
Because the goddamned DVD that those cocksmokers at Amazon sent me has some kind of flaw that makes the movie freeze at 59:47!! There’s no fast-forwarding past it. There’s no rewinding to 59:48. In my universe, the movie ENDS after Kane asks Susan Alexander to sing for him for the first time.
FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKITYFUCKFUCKFUCK!!! This has been a bad month for me; I’ve had something flu-like that the doctor can’t quite pin down, I’m gaining weight despite the diet, I’m depressed, I have too much work and not enough time, my grandma might be dying, I have job interviews and the Dow Jones copy editing test to worry about, there’s a motherfucking WAR on, AND I CAN’T EVEN WATCH THIS STUPID MOVIE THAT I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO OWNING FOR TWO FUCKING YEARS?!?!?! I might be overreacting, BUT DO I NOT GET ANYTHING GOOD THIS YEAR? NOTHING?
Fuck.
I’m going to write a calm, reasoned email to Amazon tonight, requesting that we switch my disk for one that fucking works. I might not say “fuck” per se, but it will be implied.
Jesus fuck. Of all that crap going on in my life and the world at large, this is the thing that drives me over the edge? The rest of the world should have such problems, but I just wanted this so much. It was going to be an oasis in a month of shit. And it’s broken.
Story of my fucking life.