My father and I get together on a regular basis to eat breakfast at a local greasy spoon. After moaning and groaning our way back to the car, we head to Wal-Mart. Our destination? The $5.50 DVD bin. We are experts at shuffling through to discover new finds.

We start in one corner of the bin and dig our way to the bottom. Once that surface has been sighted, we start staking. The key to the whole operation is the stacks. You see, DVD’s just get dumped into the bin and it is difficult to know what is there. They slip and slide around as you are searching through them and there is really no place to put the ones you have already searched. However, if you stack them, you eventually have quite a bit of left over space.

Dad and I usually draw an interested crowd. After all, we have our system down to a fine art and are quite enthusiastic when we find a good movie. Of course, all the interest is not in us. I know that. Most of our watchers have their eyes glued to the stacks we are creating. What movies are we rejecting? Will we hand over that one? Have we seen this one?

I tell you, it is quite satisfying to discover a DVD at the bottom of the pile. Of course, since there are two of us, we often have to find a second copy. Old movies for him, Sci-fi or Disaster for me.

Yes, we both have Excel spreadsheets with all the DVD’s we own…and the ones we want.

The Holy Grail…a $5.50 DVD from that list!