It's 1997. I'm twenty-three, out of college, and working. A group of us have ditched the office for the afternoon to go to the nearby theater.

Star Wars is being re-released.

I stand in line with guys who are my age, who had the same toys, the same Halloween costumes. Mike, our giant supervisor who works as a bouncer on weekends, is not with us. He's off at a toy store in Van Nuys, thirty miles away, because he heard there were some new Princess Leia action figures still left on the shelves. His eyes bugged out when I showed him the toys my parents had stashed in the attic. Jabba the Hutt sits on my desk, his dais now a container for my loose change.

We walk into the theater, which has an equal number of twentysomethings and eight year-olds. The lights go down, and I'm bouncing up and down and laughing at the pure joy of seeing the giant yellow words scroll up the screen as John Williams' music pumps out in THX.

I wonder what the eight year-olds are thinking.