Blockbuster

It’s Friday night And we are driving to the blockbuster on 12th street. You know the one, with the blue sign out front and the m&ms piled up in the front of the cash register just waiting to be taken home. It smells like popcorn inside which I never understood because the kernels aren’t yet popped in their little packages. We take turns every other Friday deciding who gets to pick the movie. It’s my turn and time slows down as I scan the shelves for the next best pick. It might be the lion king or something scary like nightmare on elm street even though dad says I might be too young for that one. My dad wears black t-shirts and khaki shorts with socks that are too long. My dad says movies are art and watches cartoons with us every Saturday morning. We pop popcorn with our newly found blockbuster movie, putting the tape into the VCR and pressing play. I shove m&ms in my mouth, feeling them melt into oblivion. Life is good and I don’t know if it could get any better than this. I want to stay here with the movies and VCRs. The melty m&ms and the popcorn that comes in a package. I don’t know in this moment that things will eventually change. That movies will be streamed and subscriptions will be invented that cost way too much. That movies won’t be in a physical form, I won’t be able to hold them in my two little hands, blowing into the VCR before shoving the video in. That blockbuster would go extinct, not to be known by kids in the future. My childhood was movies with my dad, the drive to blockbuster where my siblings and I could barely handle the excitement. Time stood still then and things didn’t feel so out of control. I was lost in a world where movies felt like they solved everything. It was a tradition until time took the trips to blockbuster away from me. Time takes everything away eventually but I hold onto the memories. I can still picture the inside of the blockbuster, the thousands of shelves filled with different genres of movies. I can still picture my dad loading us all up into his Toyota truck just as excited as we were for the next movie to be chosen. Life’s too short not to remember the good times. I soak them in and hold them close to my heart. Time can pass all it wants but my memories will be for keeps. The trips to blockbuster just can’t be beaten. I thank my dad for creating such traditions for us kids, for helping create my love for movies. If only kids today could know the feeling of a blockbuster trip.-M.D.L