At least it’s a slow death

Ava and I are putting together a basket for a raffle we’re calling The Quill Sisters Favorite Things. Inside, we have, well, a bunch of our favorite things: Copies of our favorite movies (Action, comedy and classic love story), our favorite books (comedy, historical romance, and best book of all time), there are animals and treats and other stuff we love.

We also figured we better put a Bruce Springsteen CD in there or his feelings might get hurt if he ever finds out he was accidentally forgotten. We’d feel just terrible if that happened. Really.

The trick was finding a copy. There are no record stores anymore, at least not in our town. Target didn’t carry a copy of either Born to Run (ideal) or Greatest Hits (acceptable). I won’t go into Walmart unless forced. I looked in our everything used store, Bookmans (in two separate locations). Nada.

It was musician husband who clued to me in to the only real music store left in town – Zia.

We pulled up to the store and parked.

“What’s this?” Sassy asked.

“This, my dear, is a record store.” My Honey said the words with awe. “Back in the day, this is the only place your mother and I could buy music.”

“Really.” Both kids sounded leery and confused and sorta unimpressed, but they followed us inside anyway.

“Behold.” He spread his arms wide, encompassing the racks of cds, posters, and other stuff. “THIS is the ’80’s.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed and pointed to one rack. There were actual records in there too. Granted, My Honey and I probably have more in our stash in the office, but this really was a record store with LPs and everything. 10 for $10. Such a steal.

Sassy immediately curled up her nose. “It smells in here.”

I took a deep whiff of patchouli. “Actually, this smells A LOT better than I remember the ’80’s smelling.”

I thought of the old, stolen beer and stale cigarettes and pot smoke and boys and Aqua Net hairspray. I had an extra smell to add to the mix when I was a teenager. Popcorn. I worked in a movie theater all through high school and most of college. Everything I owned – my car, my clothes, my hair – smelled like popcorn. I couldn’t eat it for decades afterwards.

I wound my way over to the rock section, found the “S” rack, and located my Springsteen. I wandered around the store and touched stuff, picked up old albums like friends. Read some liner notes. Thought about where I’d been when I bought Prince’s Purple Rain or Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses. I thought about drinking bottles of Riunite on the roof of my first apartment, which was actually a house, and listened to MTV blaring from below. My friend Jenny and I were the official tenants but about twelve other people had keys, too.

It was a nostalgia overload. Until we were walking out of the store.

“I just don’t get it. Why would you bother to go in there when you can get iTunes from the couch?”

And another part of my youth quietly died.