When I moved to New York eight-and-a-half years ago, I came in a U-Haul packed full of junk, including wicker furniture, a Laura Ashley bedspread and a milk crate of CDs that, at the time, I thought were pretty cool.
While the wicker furniture was put out on the street years ago, I haven't been able to part with the CDs. I have lugged that damn crate to eight different apartments because I couldn't bring myself to part with the music of my youth—which in retrospect mostly sucks, and not even in an ironic way (the first CD I ever purchased was the soundtrack to the Adams' Family Movie).
Now that I'm moving back to Missouri, however, and am determined to not be the girl I was determined not to be when I left, I decided it was finally time to let the music (and some muzak if we're being honest here) go. I figured the stoop sale I was having on Saturday was the perfect excuse.
As I put the Dixie Chicks, Master P (which I still like, but it's a little scratched up) and Wilson Phillips in the box labeled "The Most Embarrassing CD Collection Ever, $0.25–$2.00," I came across a loose, teal CD. It was "2 Become 1" by the Spice Girls. I started holding onto it when I was 15 or so, because I wanted to lose my virginity during that song... in a clean bedroom full of candles. I did not have a clean bedroom. Or a large collection of candles. And I sure as hell didn't lose my virginity to the tune of the Spice Girls.
I don't even think there was any music playing.
The short version of the story is that I lost my virginity to my manager at Just For Feet when I was 17. The less short version is that I lost my virginity to my manager at Just For Feet ("The world's largest athletic shoe store!") two weeks before my 18th birthday in his apartment behind the bowling alley behind the mall. He was 23 and had just broken up with his fiance. I really don't remember much more about it. It was less than spectacular.
That was a few months before I moved to New York. I held onto the CD thinking that sex had to be better than that—that someday 2 would become 1 and it would be spectacular.
Over the years I lost the case. The CD got moved a lot, never played.
Saturday I put it in the 25-cent box at the stoop sale. At the end of the day it was still there. I looked at the back. It was totally scratched up and even a little cracked. [Insert tortured metaphor here.]
I never realized that the Spice Girls are practically having sex with New York City in that video. Good thing I still have the CD and 12 days left in Brooklyn.
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