Isn’t Life Strange?

I was at my local electronics and media store yesterday (the one with the big yellow tag above the doors) and purchased a couple of DVDs. In an uncharacteristic move, I decided to forgo my habit of tossing the unopened boxes onto the stack of other unopened DVDs and instead, actually unwrapped and opened them. I have no idea what possessed me to do this (I opened my months-old copy of Spider-Man 3 only yesterday) but sometimes I surprise myself when I buckle down and by golly take the initiative to accomplish things. i also am impressed with myself when I can write without resorting to speaking parenthetically - but hey, one problem at a time.

I’m glad I opened them.

The first package I opened, a two disc set, included some nice liner notes but other than that was completely empty! There were no discs in the box. I thought perhaps this was a clever trick the marketing people were playing - that the discs were perhaps hiding in a secret compartment somewhere in the cardboard packaging. After all, why would they go to all the trouble to package a DVD set without including the actual discs? There were no such compartments. I looked on the floor. No discs there.

I was disappointed that I would have to go back to the store and make an exchange, but sometimes these things happen.

Then I opened my other purchase, a four-disc set that is completely unrelated to the other product. This one was a little better as it contained three of the four discs I expected to find in the box. So to add things up, I received exactly half of the discs I paid for. What a strange problem, and even more bizarre that it happened with two sets purchased on the same day!

I just know the ladies at the store were thinking I was trying to pull a fast one on them when I showed them one empty box and another that had only three of four discs. They even had a few words to themselves as I waited at the counter to make my exchange. I was hoping it wouldn’t get ugly and fortunately it didn’t.

I’m wondering how common these kinds of problems are. This is not the first time I’ve had some kind of issue with DVD purchases from that same store. On more than one occasion I have picked up a box marked “Wide-Screen Edition” only to find that I was buying a full-screen edition in a wide-screen edition box.

Has anyone else encountered these kinds of oddities?