Coworkers: Part 20 - Full Moon Washout

     Todd and I were adept at getting screeners into the store. Screeners = advance viewing copies of movies. Films scheduled for release within 60 days were routinely sent to video buyers to encourage orders. Mind you, distant Bromeroids in Dallas ordered all sell through and rental videos for the chain. Todd and I were mere store drones, yet we implied we were "big buyers."
     I made contacts with Republic, PolyGram, Buena Vista, and some soft-core porn representative. Camp Bowie received monthly boxes of all sorts of winners. Quality art house flicks from Miramax, Neo-Noir from Poly, B-films from Republic, and naked thriller junk.
     Todd only had one contact, direct to video Full Moon Features. Subspecies, Trancers, Demonic Toys, Puppet Master, and a hundred sequels.

     I added my boxes to the promo pile and coworkers borrowed jewels at random. I didn't mind. Todd was far more territorial. He shared, but he wanted those masterpieces returned. Todd was building a collection of tiny terrors. Actually, Todd was far more involved with Full Moon than he let on.
     Once a month, I'd phone Monty or Terri or a couple other reps, chat for a couple of minutes, then request whatever they had available. Todd, on the other hand, joined Full Moon fan-clubs, entered their contests, created in-store displays. There was an ulterior motive. Todd was trying to get The Toadies into one of their movies. Press, even for a grade-D film, was still exposure. And Full Moon was holding a contest for bands. A lucky winner would get an appearance in a film to be determined.
     Todd's correspondence with Full Moon, like mine with the majors, went to and from the Camp Bowie address. Mail addressed to specific employees was generally safe.
     Generally.
     Envelopes might get trash canned by accident. Or opened. The store was family, what could you do?

     Todd asked several of us to watch for any mail with the Full Moon return address. Didn't want to miss his winning notification!
     Rob found the letter and plopped it in his box for safe keeping.
     Robert and I had the worst employee boxes of anyone in the store. Ours were nailed on a wall just off the hallway into the office. Coworkers marched into these daily. Once a week, they'd end up on the floor. Contents strewn or kicked everywhere. Yeah, yeah, poor baby. Worse, we were directly under the condensation unit of the store air conditioning. When the A/C froze up, it leaked buckets. Where did all that water go? Rob's box, my box.
     On that particular day, when two boxes were soggy, cardboard messes, there had been an envelope in Rob's box, placed there for safekeeping.
     Took our boxes about a week to dry out.
     In the confusion, Rob forgot.
     Todd was really pissed off.
     He and Rob were sharing an apartment at the time.
     The band hadn't won that grand prize, but, that wasn't the point.

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