YOUR TOWN, YOUR STATE - The gentleman in front of you on the check-out line at Blockbuster Video repeatedly asserted that he already returned the goddamned videos and is not paying no overdue fee.

Ralph Myers, 43, a heating technician, got in line about five seconds before you did, holding a pack of gummi bears and a VHS copy of the Julia Roberts/Nick Nolte romantic thriller I Love Trouble. But when informed by Blockbuster employee Rashida Williams, 17, that he owed $22.48 in overdue fees for the late return of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and Jakob the Liar, Myers responded by both denying ever having rented the films and insisting that he had returned them well before noon on the eighth day. The cognitive dissonance produced by this dual assertion led to a six-minute debate with an increasingly agitated Williams, who ignored your suggestion that she continue to process the rentals of the other customers in line and eventually called the manager over.

You, meanwhile, missed the beginning of the seven o'clock episode of Law & Order, on the cable network TNT. Also, your 20 oz. bottle of Vanilla Coke got a little warm.