“How was your mom’s?” Roo asked.
“She cleaned out my old room and found some interesting stuff.”
“Nothing too damning I hope.”
“Well, she found some old diaries. Thankfully they were written when I was 12 and the most horrible thing I could have admitted to back then was throwing a hockey stick at my brother.”
“You what?”
“He deserved it.”
“Says the thrower.”
“She did find something random,” I said, changing the subject. I handed Roo a piece of paper that had been deliberately folded over and over again.
“What is this?”
“A letter that S gave me before I left for college.”
“Huh,” he said, glancing at the letter then putting it down on the coffee table, “What’s in your other hand?”
“Oh. Nothing.”
“Is that a CD binder?”
“No.”
“What CDs are in there?”
“It’s empty.”
“You brought back an empty CD binder from the 1990s. To our apartment. Which is already cluttered with how many back-issues of Rachael Ray Magazine?”
“Hey, your DVD collection -”
“Which there are of 5. What CDs do you have?”
“Well, ok,” I said, handing it over.
Roo unzipped the binder, flipping it open in the middle. “You listened to Godsmack?”
“I listen to everything.”
He flipped the sleeved page over, pulling out a CD labeled with thick permanent marker, “System of a Down?”
“Yeah, I listened to them in college. I liked the song about chop suey.”
“I don’t think it was really about chop suey.”
“Whatever. So, I was thinking about it on the drive home; after reading the letter, listening to some CDs in the car -”
“You listened to these?”
“Maybe. Maybe Dave Matthews Band. Who are still awesome by the way.”
“Agreed.”
“Anyway, all of this made me remember, how S, L and I ran around that farm, acting like we owned the place. We would skip out on barn chores to do Dunky’s runs. Do you remember when they came out with ‘the breakfast sandwich?’”
“It was kind of epic. Back when Dunky’s used to be good.”
“I know. And I remember saying, ‘Bagels at Dunky’s?! Uh, no thanks.’ But then I had one and it was delicious! Or so the hungover 18 year old me thought.”
“Now they taste like sawdust.”
I smiled, “And we would order iced coffees with milk and 10 sugars, boxes of donut holes – mostly chocolate of course- and oh! Cumby’s! We would go to Cumby’s all the time, buying pints of Ben and Jerry’s. L would get Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Or maybe it was Peanut Butter Cup? I forget what S would get…”
“That sounds really -”
“Awesome, right?”
“Gross.”
I sighed. “I want donuts.”
“What?”
“Reminiscing about all of this makes me what donuts. Peanut butter, chocolate…”
“Banana?”
“Genius.”
