At Crazy Manda's Everything Must Go

Picture it: Summer, 2002, Top of the Hill in Chapel Hill, NC
Two guys and a girl sitting around a table drinking I don't remember what. A game of "I Never" has devolved into a series of increasingly personal questions and answers, which will eventually lead the trio to agree that "What goes on in Chapel Hill stays in Chapel Hill."

The evening ends with the Queen Mother of all personal questions: "What's the most embarrassing CD you ever bought?"

I'm pretty sure my answer to this question at the time was Poison's "Look What the Cat Dragged In." The only other answer I remember was from the guy who did the asking: Madonna's "Like a Virgin." We weren't even talking CDs anymore. We were talking about tapes.

Still, it's easily the most personal question anyone has ever asked me. I can't even think of another question that's more personal.

And this evening, I think my answer could safely be ALL OF THEM. Or at least pretty much everything I bought during the 90's.

If you've been following along at home, you know I'm engaged in an all out war against my belongings. I've already put my DVDs and my books on the chopping block over at Amazon. And last night, I started listing CDs, which seems kind of futile because nobody buys CDs anymore. This part of the experience is humiliating, even though it's just between me and those anonymous buyers picking up Pearl Jam's "Ten" for a quarter. You can deny a lot of things about your past, but those boxes of jewel cases stand as an eternal testament to how lame you once were.

At least until you woman up and start listing them for sale.

How many places have I lived since I moved out of my parents' house in 1992? A lot. There was a two year period in there when I changed residences no fewer than six times. That might have been the happiest two years of my life, come to think of it. And yet, somehow, in all of this moving around, I somehow still have a copy of Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill?" Are you KIDDING ME? If I go the rest of my life without ever hearing that woman screech out "You Oughta Know," then I can safely say that the rest of my life will be superior to the years up to now in a substantial way.

I didn't like that song when it came out. And that was in the midst of my first big breakup. I was the target audience. Hell, I'm still the target audience. I'm the angriest woman I know personally. But it's got stupid lyrics and the music is boring.

Come to that, I have a nasty habit of judging harshly people who don't know the correct context and usage of the term "irony."

Why do I even own this CD in the first place?

And that's not even the most embarrassing CD I've got here. It's just the most embarrassing one I'm willing to admit in front of people-- all five of you.

My mom never kept any cool records. Or maybe she just never owned any cool records, so maybe I've erred on the side of caution in case some kind of imaginary progeny I might have would want them. Even though I'm pretty sure at this point any progeny I ever have will be strictly imaginary, even if they weren't, I couldn't face them after they'd seen what's in these boxes. I'm having a hard time facing the boxes myself.

Ahhh, but at least we have Blonde on Blonde. It's gonna be okay.