Once again, I am thrilled that my noodle has stored away this little nut of info for so many years...

At work today, I heard an ad on the radio that was essentially an army guy saying to call a phone number and you could hear his story. This immediately transported me back to the mall and childhood. Who remembers the magic tree? It was down at the end where the Gap is now, towards the movie theaters (where I distinctly remember seeing ‘rocky horror’ for the first time at age 16 with the king of kabul, but that’s a whole other story). It was a huge plastic (?) tree that had a phone (or maybe 2) attached to it. You picked up the sparkly phone, put your quarter in the slot, and heard any number of stories. It really seemed like magic. And I think even as a child, I predicted the absurdity of cell phones, cause even if I didn’t have a quarter, I loved to pick up the phone and look like I was talking to someone. It’s horrifying to me now to think how many other kids’ hands, ears, and mouths germs were on that thing. But geez did I love that thing...