Play It Again, VHS

I have acquired an old VCR. I came by it honestly. Jenn gave it to me because she no longer had use for it. I accepted it for reasons I don't remember. It was about 4 months ago. It's still sitting in my office with its remote, the back facing me and the cord dangling casually down the side of the filing cabinet. When she asked me if I wanted it, I was enthusiastic and hopeful about all the things I could do with it. I have all these old tapes. In a box somewhere. Tons of old tapes I haven't watched in years because I no longer had a VCR. Tapes like "Bild Eines Deutschen Madchen" which I'm not sure I'm spelling right and that's sad because I wrote and produced it. Entirely in German! It's an interview with my mom I did back in college for a class. 45 minutes of me asking tough questions auf Deustch like "How did you feel when you became a U.S. Citizen?" Oh, how I stuttered through Staatsangenhuerigkeit...I think it means citizenship. The introduction was spot-on, though, and I did not even flinch when a three-legged dog limped by while I was shooting it. Then there's my trip with Zena to visit Rebecca in West Virginia. Zena spilled Easter M&M's all over my truck and we arrived in a snowstorm in April. We were wearing shorts thinking this was a trip to the South. Captured all that on VHS. Some of my favorite videos I did back in the day for Jacobson's department store are somewhere in a box. "Folding Girbaud" (how to properly fold jeans) and "P.O.S. Systems" (starring who else, my mom) and of course the whole "Success through Negotiation" series. I got my brother Stan involved in that one. He was a first-take wizard. I thought I would never be able to watch them again, but now I have hours of entertainment ahead of me because I have a VCR. Still sitting in my office. Gathering dust. Maybe I'm just not ready to travel back in time. Plus I'd have to hook up the VCR to a TV. Our TV already has a cable, dvd, tivo and wii box plugged into it. It looks like someone on life support. Being a newer model, it would likely reject the VCR anyway. Now I have to get an old TV to go with it. Clean out the loft. Spackle, caulk, paint. Go to Ikea and get shelving, a desk and a daybed. Hang some art, set up the TV/VCR, buy a library of VHS classics to put on the shelves (along with all those classics of my own) and be that crazy aunt from whom her nieces and nephews learn about the old days. "When we go to Aunt Susie's, we watch big plastic movies in her attic." I might as well learn how to bake ginger snaps. Meggie?!