I Suppose YOUR Favorite Movie is Titanic

Recently I was at my friends’ house, drinking a beer and trying too hard to be funny, when my friend Amy handed me a copy of Entertainment Weekly.
“Here,” she said, “you’ll think this is interesting.”
This issue of Entertainment Weekly ranked the top 100 everything of the last 25 years—top 100 TV shows, top 100 albums, top 100 books, top 100 plays, videogames, movies, etc. As is always the case with such things, I found myself howling at certain choices the editors had made. For example the greatest television program in the history of television programs was rated #11, behind the likes of Lost and Friends. I shook my fist and gnashed my teeth, and other people in the room decided to go get another drink or see how the grill was doing.
But then of course, there were the things I felt they had got right. Among these, Pulp Fiction was rated as the number one movie of the last 25 years.
“Can’t argue with that!” I thought, tipping my imaginary cap to the editors.
It reminded me of an anecdote from several years ago, when I went to purchase that excellent movie on VHS. I had received some horrible over-sized sweater from my grandmother, and had taken it back to Target for store credit. Target’s always got some great deals on movies, and I found Pulp Fiction, most important movie of the last 25 years, for the low low price of $9.99. Giddy with the thrill of a bargain well hunted, I approached the register.
“I’d like to purchase this video please!” I told the cashier, my eyes full of the innocence and sugar plums.
“Alright then,” said the cashier, a woman not unlike Lunch-Lady Doris. She regarded my purchase. She held it up at arm’s length, looking over her spectacles.
“Hmmm,” she said, “I don’t hold with this trash.”
(I realize I am taking creative liberties with the story, but I want to stress that she actually called my purchase ‘trash.’)
I looked back at her, agape. She returned my gaze, a look of certainty in her wrinkly eye-balls.
“Trash,” she said.
“It’s not trash actually. I don’t buy trash.” I told her.
Unimpressed, she bagged my purchase, and I fantasized about reporting her to her supervisor, but knowing all the while I wouldn’t follow through. I hope that somewhere she is looking at Entertainment Weekly right now, high arbiter of popular culture, and reconsidering her opinion.
“Trash.” What a stupid bitch.