The DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN

REPLACE or DIE!

Some picture from the Best Buy website. This lady is happy because she's only trapped inside Best Buy's website and not their actual, physical store.

I recently read some of the various critical acclaims lavished upon the original Silent Hill, so this weekend I decided to purchase its sequel, appropriately named "Silent Hill 2," for the Playstation 2. After I brought the game home and unwrapped the disc, I was shocked to discover that it was only compatible with a Playstation 2 game system, dashing my hopes of running it on my CD player or my freezer which was recently upgraded to have a CD player that really pissed me off fit inside of it. I returned to Best Buy so I could purchase the required PS2, preparing myself for the hellish inferno that I would soon walk into, a pain that would undoubtedly tear my entire central nervous system apart: that's correct, I'm of course referring to the DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN assault.

You see, any Best Buy purchase over 38 cents causes them, by Congressional mandate, to batter and molest you until you eventually agree to purchase a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN. The DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN is sort of like a warranty for your warranty; if the hunk of Japanese shit you bought self destructs and vaporizes your entire family within the next 10 decades, Best Buy will refund your money and let you use it to purchase the entire DVD collection of "Carrot Top: Uncut." They will also allow their trained specialists, who are neither trained nor specialists, repair your defective product or at least force you to stand in line for 90 minutes just so they can say that all the replacement units are sold out and the only store that has any left is 500 miles away and is closed or haunted or invisible or doesn't exist. You will then be escorted out of the store only to have the Nazi Theft Detection System begin beeping like crazy, branding you to the entire store as an evil criminal mastermind who is attempting to build an ICBM control center from Panasonic speakers. And that is in a best case scenario.

As soon as I told the Best Buy Storeroom Menace I was interested in a buying Playstation 2, she immediately attacked me with the DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN and launched into the spiel which is imprinted into their DNA the moment they sign the Best Buy employment contract. Having bought a computer at Best Buy before, I had myself braced and ready.

BEST BUY STOREROOM MENACE: "Would you be interested in the DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN? It's only $49.99 for 300 thousand million years of service! It protects against-"
ME: (Shrewdly interrupting) "No thanks, I'm not interested."
BEST BUY STOREROOM MENACE: "Oh. Well okay."

Now at this point, anybody who has ever bought anything at Best Buy is thinking to themselves, "self, this can't be! This isn't how Best Buy operates! What alternate dimension were you in? They'll firebomb your parents' house before letting you escape without a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN!" There is a bright shiny gold star in store for all of you people who thought this. The Best Buy Storeroom Menace was simply softening me up for Queen Best Buy, the 19-year old acne-skulled corpse that was rotting behind the checkout desk. It was like a good cop / bad cop routine, except they were both bad cops and the question was not if, but when they would begin shoving a broken toilet plunger into my rectum. As the Best Buy Storeroom Menace passed me off to Queen Best Buy, they communicated via telepathy and she was instantly aware of my failure to purchase a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN. That's when the pain started.

Okay, I don't know what's going on in this picture, but I think that lady is in trouble and somebody should probably notify the authorities.

QUEEN BEST BUY: "May I interest you in a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN?"
ME: "No, I-"
QUEEN BEST BUY:(Interrupting) "It protects your unit against any kind of defects or damage that may occur during your entire lifetime, your children's lifetimes, and their kids' lifetimes."
ME: "I'm not-"
QUEEN BEST BUY: (Interrupting) "If you were to pick up this Playstation 2 and attempt to engage in sex with it, we'd replace the unit when your bodily fluids cause various parts inside it to short circuit and spontaneously combust."
ME: "Well I'm-"
QUEEN BEST BUY: (Interrupting) "Everybody is buying a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN. Everybody. All the cool kids are doing it. You want to be 'cool,' don't you? You want to be accepted?"
ME: "I thought-"
QUEEN BEST BUY: (Interrupting) "The Gamecube and... that Microsoft thing (her actual words) are coming up soon, and if you buy a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN then you can bring in your Playstation 2 and trade it in for one! The Gamecube is going to be 400 times more powerful than the PS2 and it will take care of your cat when you leave town!"
ME: "How did you know I had a-"
QUEEN BEST BUY: (Interrupting) "Let me be honest with you. These Playstation break all the time. I had some guy come into here just the other day, yelling and screaming at us because his Playstation 2 would only play games if it was upside down (her actual words). We couldn't do anything for him because he didn't buy a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN. He was stuck with a $299 wad of plastic and metal. Then he was hit by a car and killed in the parking lot. If he had a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN that would've never happened. A. Anderson of Cleveland has a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN and he just won $50,000 in the lottery! G. Johnson of Las Vegas has a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN and his wife was just elected to be the Pope! E. Franklin of Burro Heights didn't buy a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN and he just got AIDS from touching a candy bar vending machine."
ME: "Who's E. Frank-"
QUEEN BEST BUY: (Interrupting) "Let me tell you the truth: we haven't sold a functioning Playstation 2 in six months. In fact, 99% of the boxes are empty or just contain a lump of rotting potatoes. Sometimes poisonous snakes spring out and kill the owner. We don't even think Playstation 2s exist. You'd be a stupid rat bastard if you didn't purchase a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN. Who's your hero?"
ME: "Well my hero is former Orlando Magic center Greg Kite, but-"
QUEEN BEST BUY:(Interrupting) "Greg Kite would want you to buy a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN. He's bought 50 DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLANS. You want to be like Greg Kite, don't you?"
ME: "Yeah, I guess, but-"
QUEEN BEST BUY: (Interrupting) "Listen: we have sharpshooters positioned all around this building. There's no chance of you leaving here alive without a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN. Your home address is in our computers. We'll have your place ransacked and looted by the time you cart your fat ass back home. You've got two options here, and they both involve you buying a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN. Jesus died so you could get a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN. Terrorists want to destroy America because they are jealous of our freedom to purchase DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLANS. You're not a terrorist, are you? WELL ARE YOU?"

At this point I just threw a handful of money at her and ran off shrieking like a violated Japanese schoolgirl. I didn't succumb to her intense pressure of purchasing a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN and her obscenely angry looks reflected this, as they melted a generous portion of the steel pole behind me. Now I don't want to be too harsh on Queen Best Buy since it's not her fault that Best Buy is run by Nazi cyborgs who force all their employees to do a DREADED BEST BUY PRODUCT REPLACEMENT PLAN hard sell on every customer. I didn't get angry at her or make her life hell because it's the Best Buy store policy and their store managers who are to blame for this pain. However, I did learn one important lesson from this experience: all electronics should be purchased online. My computer can't give me the hard sell on any product replacement plans, and if it does, I at least have the luxury of throwing it out a window and into the woods. The same can't be said about many Best Buy employees. At least that's what the judge told me.

Fireman Monday!

Another Monday, another dose of everybody's favorite wacky firefighters!

Now that's class!

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)