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By all accounts, Baton Rouge’s Netflix distribution center just off Florida Boulevard, like the others nationwide, is something of a cinematic Fort Knox, a well- guarded Wonka-like factory humming with the assembly line efficiency of an unknown number of employees emptying old envelopes into the recycling bin, evaluating worn inner sleeves and the discs themselves for scratches, and filling crisp red envelopes with new orders. Lots of them.

More than 100,000 DVDs flow in and out of the regional hub every day, as the Internet-based movie rental system has climbed among the top 10 users of first-class mail in the country. Netflix now claims 5.2 million users, 1,350 nationwide employees and, according to representative Steve Swasey, earned an estimated $980 million since its debut in 1998.

The breadth of the Netflix catalog certainly is its strength, and the usual three-day turnaround isn’t bad either. An interesting, albeit trivial effect from Katrina was that, as evidenced by numerous Internet rants, Netflix users across the South were angered by up to nine-day delays of their movies from the Baton Rouge hub. But there’s just something incredibly empowering and dizzyingly limitlessness about having an out-of-print copy of Antonioni’s Blow-Up delivered right to your door by a company that tells you to return it whenever you want.

That’s where Netflix has me in real trouble on those occasions that I do still shop at a rental store. I find myself losing track of how long I’ve had my Major Video and Blockbuster discs when I never had trouble keeping tabs before. My once unblemished return record is now regularly tarnished as Netflix’s I’ll-return-it-after-I’ve-watched-the-director’s-commentary-twice-and-used-the-inner-sleeve-as-a-coaster attitude has taken hold completely. And of course, the foreign and documentary sections at rental joints now seem woefully scant. Oh well, next time I’ll just Netflix it.