It was then a complete shock when yours truly wandered into the independently owned and operated Wonder Book on West Patrick Street last summer and rediscovered something I thought was extinct. Inside, they offer the last place of resistance (at least locally) in a Netflix dominated world. It was an opportunity for customers to engage in what could perhaps be described as an anachronism: the ability to physically rent a movie, interact with a human being to complete said transaction, and go home with a DVD or Blu-ray movie of choice. But couldn’t you rent from the ubiquitous Redbox adjacent in many grocery stores? The difference, Wonder Book general manager David Bussard points out, is significant.

• A seven-day rental should give plenty of procrastinators time in a busy week schedule to watch and return.

• You come home with the entire original DVD/Blu-ray case, including booklet spreads that contain additional photos and informative liner notes about the making of the film. Talking to former Wonder Book manager Kris Norris, he explained, “You can hold the box in your hand and see the actual artwork that went into it. It’s all the niche things that I think is part of the nostalgia [of renting] that people miss.”

• The selection is far more expansive, with older classic films, vast catalogues of archived TV series, and in the case of newer films, selection ranges from the offbeat, critically praised indie flicks and harder to find foreign titles (I’m waiting impatiently for a Korean zombie nuanced political commentary flick “Train to Busan” on Blu-Ray).

• Another important distinction comes into play with newer titles. Usually when DVD/Blu-ray titles gets released, customers get first crack to view it, beating most streaming services by several weeks right after a film exits first-run theaters.

• Wonder Book even rents out 3D Blu-ray films, a medium that may not have taken off en mass but hasn’t gone away either.

And there’s more. While I’m guessing no one in Frederick had the pleasure of receiving movie recommendations from Tarantino or Smith during their video store clerkship, you can talk to the Wonder Book staff who are self-professed geeks (a compliment) and can steer you in the right direction for choice viewing options.

“The cool thing about that job is literally the interaction between the people who still come out to rent videos, rather than just sitting at home watching cable and doing the Netflix thing,” Norris said. And Bussard agrees, adding, “There’s that human interaction that you can’t get with a cold machine.” That double entendre extends to the computer-generated advice one might receive from streaming services.

The entire experience — from browsing through aisles to popping in a disc — is something I hadn’t engaged in for many years. My memory banks flooded back, as ridiculous as it sounds, of halcyon days at the video store hunting for cool VHS flicks to check out. After interviewing Bussard at Wonder Book last week, I ended up renting three movies: Jodorowski’s 1970 experimental film “El Topo,” 2011 Academy Award Best Picture winner “The Artist,” and for the kids, the wickedly creatively “Kubo and the Two Strings.” None are available on Netflix to stream, and as far as I can ascertain, can’t be found at Redbox (though if a Redbox did carry all three titles, that would be by far THE hippest DVD renting-machine in the nation).

But the reality is Netflix and the effect it has in upending the entire media infrastructure is here to stay, at least for now. Wonder Book has survived that whirlwind, mainly because it does not entirely rely on rentals. Looking around at the cacophony of books, video games, vintage vinyl records and movies for sale, the big picture is that it’s the analogue elements that allowed it to survive in a topsy-turvy digital world. I’ll explore more about the “Netflix effect” in the near future, but as the walls of my own box (the space of this column) are closing in, I leave you with this vignette. Asking Bussard about his reaction when he hears the phrase “Netflix and chill,” he observed recently a couple Instagramming “Wonder Book and chill” as they attached a selfie of themselves finding a movie to rent for their date night. Adaptations of the old and new in the modern age … it keeps on rolling.