An ordinary dialogue between friends used to go something like this:

Friend: “You mean you haven’t seen Firefly yet? You need to watch it immediately!”
Me: “OK, I’ll add it to my Netflix queue when I get home.”
… three months later …
Same friend: “Have you seen Firefly yet?”
Me: “Whoops, I forgot to add it to Netflix! I’ll do it when I get home.”
... repeat four time over the course of the year.

Now the conversations with the moms on my street are more like this:

Sarah: “The new Scooby Doo is out on DVD.”
JoAnn: “I know, I’ve wanted it, but it’s always checked out at the library.”
Sharon: “That was me. I had it two weeks ago.”
Karen: “You bitch! I thought that was your name in the card. You had that for DAYS! I have it now.”
JoAnn: “DVDs will be obsolete by the time I get it.”

This is where I open my purse, whip out my Treo, pull up Netflix in the mobile phone’s built-in web browser, and before Shaggy can eat his first Scooby Snack, I’ve added the DVD to my Netflix queue right there on the street.

While you’re out and about, always be on the lookout for movie trailers that sound interesting so you can add them to your queue instantly! Netflix even allows you to add movies to your queue while its still in theaters – then you can just sit back and wait for it to be released on DVD!

If you can’t access a web browser on your cell phone, you probably either don’t have a mobile phone that supports the web, or you may not have a data plan. Check with your cell phone provider, and of course make sure you know what the charges will be for visiting a website if you don’t have a data plan.

Of course, now that we are parents, our Netflix movies sit there in the living room for about a month before we get around to watching them. Yes, I could have paid for those DVDs five times over by now.

But at least my queue is impressive, and I’m not pissing anyone off at the library!