778.
That’s the number of Netflix DVDs I have rented since I signed up on October 6, 2006. (My first one was Hoot. I gave it two stars. Clearly not a fan, but that one was obviously for the kids. I also rented Best in Show that day and loved it to the tune of five stars.)
I signed up literally one week after separating from my wife. I’d just moved into my brand new townhouse and, while I envisioned a swingin’ bachelor’s pad someday, I also had two young children staying with me every other week and I hadn’t dated in approximately 20 years. Any panties hanging from the ceiling fan were most certainly months out still. I figured I’d need something to keep myself and the kids entertained while we charted new waters. Netflix had pioneered the mail-order DVD concept years earlier and I figured it was time to hop aboard that train, so I opted for the plan that gave me three DVDs at a time. I was quite the movie junkie back then, and figured I’d get my money’s worth.
I certainly did those first few years. Thanks to Netflix’s “history” feature, every single DVD I ever rented appears in a handy list sorted by date. I can chart the course of my entire post-divorce adult life through my Netflix DVD rental history. Major milestones dictated my viewing habits: I had a short but serious relationship with a crazy person in 2010, started dating Tara the next year, moved in with her in 2012, married her in 2013. After that, we averaged about two DVDs a month pretty consistently, but then Tara got into gardening and we moved to Wisconsin and those numbers dropped even more.
- 2006: 22 DVDs
- 2007: 96 DVDs
- 2008: 125 DVDs
- 2009: 96 DVDs
- 2010: 74 DVDs
- 2011: 72 DVDs
- 2012: 53 DVDs
- 2013: 30 DVDs
- 2014: 22 DVDs
- 2015: 26 DVDs
- 2016: 26 DVDs
- 2017: 21 DVDs
- 2018: 22 DVDs
- 2019: 27 DVDs
- 2020: 21 DVDs
- 2021: 14 DVDs
- 2022: 16 DVDs
- 2023: 5 DVDs to date
There’s a strong chance this is interesting to absolutely no one but me. I only bring it up because last week, Netflix announced they are discontinuing their DVD service in September, and I am devastated.
I’ve mentioned my love for DVDs before, and always said I’d be a Netflix DVD subscriber for as long as the service existed. I knew it would inevitably end at some point–even my own rentals dwindled, as you can see–but god, I am going to miss retrieving those iconic red and white envelopes from the mailbox. And yes, we stream. In fact, we don’t even have cable; just a Roku and subscriptions to Hulu, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, Prime Video, and yes, Netflix. But here’s the problem: Netflix the streaming service doesn’t have anywhere close to the selection that Netflix the DVD service has. Case in point: Back in February, we watched an obscure but hilarious 1968 Woody Allen comedy called Take the Money and Run on DVD. That isn’s streaming on Netflix or any other platform currently.
So, I mourn. And bitch and complain, because those are also things I like to do. We’ll try to work through our DVD queue as much as we can before the end of September, I suppose.
On a more positive note, now that our flooring installations are complete, we’ve been able to make the house feel a little more like home with each passing day. This weekend’s project was setting up the aquarium.
In Rapid City, we’d had it in the basement, perched on an old coffee table. This was fine, but the aquarium sat much too low, so we got rid of the coffee table and I bought a stand from PetSmart. Putting it together was fun, because Top Fin, the manufacturer, had the best instruction manual I’ve ever seen. Or at least the funniest.
I am notoriously bad about assembling items. Left to my own devices, I’m sure I would have screwed something up, like put a leg on backwards or misaligned a shelf. But with Tara’s help–okay, fine; she did the majority of the work herself–we got that bad boy built in about two hours.
And, I must hand it to my wife once again. First, she questioned whether soft water was safe for tropical fish. I’d never had a house with a water softener before, and quite frankly, the thought never even crossed my mind. A quick Google search taught me that soft water, with its high salt levels, can in fact, harm aquarium fish. You’d think the guy whose first-ever job was a two-year stint in a tropical fish store would have thought of this!
Fortunately, most water softening systems have a bypass for the outdoor faucets, because you don’t want to be watering your lawn or garden with water that has a high salt content either. Problem solved! It would just require filling a 5-gallon bucket with water from outside, lugging it upstairs and through the living room, dumping it into the empty tank, and repeating roughly 14 more times. I was literally rolling up my sleeves, fully prepared to tackle the chore, when Tara stepped in once more.
“Naw, dog,” she said. “I got ‘choo.”
Confused by my wife’s sudden interest in street lingo and unsure what she meant by that, I said, “Huh?”
She then proceeded to grab a garden hose, attach it to the faucet on the back side of the house, run it up and over the deck, through the slider and kitchen, across the dining room, and into the aquarium. All I had to do was turn on the faucet, and then when the tank was full, turn it off again.
I tell you, guys. I married a smart one.
Just gotta hook up the filter and heater and let the aquarium run for a few days before adding fish. Everything is coming along nicely!
Are you mourning the end of Netflix’s DVD service too, or am I the only guy you know who still gets those red and white envelopes in the mail on a regular basis? What is your go-to streaming platform? Any great shows I should be watching?
Mark My Words 
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