Row 5 center, the High Society Cinemas, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Said cinemas closed a year after I graduated, thereby cursing a town of 20,000 people to drive an hour if they wanted to see a movie. They are now dark, windowless, available office space.

The girl was the first in a long descent of questionable choices. She was between bouts with her One True Love, a kid I hung out with who dropped out and ran away several times. Due to an unfortunate sitting-on-a-hibachi incident when she was a toddler she had a permanent waffle pattern on her ass and thighs. My comprehension of National Lampoon, BTTF Part II and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were low for many years because my formative experiences with each involved licking tonsils.

From her I moved on to a girl who claimed Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" was our song to a girl who was so stupid she spelled my 4 letter name with 6 letters (but had great breasts) to a pathological liar with awesome tits and a squished barbie doll face who overdosed on heroin a mere 3 years later. There was a brief, shining 3 month period where I actually dated a girl with an intellect and a future but I dumped her because she went to church.

Facebook friends with the smart girl. She went a lot more religious and has seven kids in Hawaii. Waffle-butt vanished into the aether. Blue Oyster Cult... well, there's a history there. The stupid one held up a gas station for meth money, last I heard. The dead one died a day before Thanksgiving; her brother shot himself the day before Christmas.

Not all memories are created equal.