Topography of Ignorance

my mother never believes anything is really her fault. that’s why last summer, when she returned movies from “the video zone” to the night drop box at “blockbuster” she was baffled as to why blockbuster couldn’t just take them back to the other video rental place. “after all,” she opined, “they are both video stores.” she discovered her error when she tried to rent movies from video zone and learned there was a $50 late fee, “outrageous!” to her. she had returned them to somewhere. it should still count! “why don’t they just take them back for me?” as though it was their fault for confusing her by being the second video store in our town. then, even after she knew what was going on, and that her movies were in the wrong location, she insisted that blockbuster take care of it, even if that meant paying for them to do so. too much dignity to take a 2 minute drive to ferry them back to their home apparently; believing that doing this for her was written about somewhere in the video rental store handbook. she has never gone back to the place with the late fee as a way of avoiding paying for it. and she has never quite recovered from the incident. neither, it seems, has “video zone.” last time i went i saw a sign above the night drop: “make sure that you are returning to the correct store, we cannot be held responsible for patrons who pay more at blockbuster…” and i knew who they were talking about: my mother (who never makes mistakes).