in honor of the 21st anniversary of THE PHANTOM MENACE, here is my story of seeing THE PHANTOM MENACE for the first and only time

that very day, i had been hired for my first real job, as a copy editor for a group of "magazines" that published exclusively on this new-fangled "internet" thing (i had been temping there for a few weeks before that)

in my memory i had been temping there "forever", but in fact it was less than a month, as i had been at my previous temp job as a receptionist on the day of the columbine shootings, which had happened on 4/20 (not nice at all)

anyway, to celebrate having a real job, i called up my previous temp employer to see if a woman there who i had been going on "dates" with wanted to hang out after work

i put "dates" in quotes because they were (a) very chaste and (b) young broke office temp people dates, basically just meeting up and walking around san francisco for a few hours in the evening and being sarcastic at each other

she said yes and we discussed how we both wanted to see the new star wars movie but had no desire to wait in line. but we did walk by the AMC in japantown to gawk at the scene, which included a person dressed up as a yoghurt cup handing out free yoghurt samples

as we were about to leave someone walked up to us and sai "hey, do you want tickets to see the phantom menace?" and then just handed us two tickets and walked away. the movie started in like 10 minutes

how could this be? we thought. why would anyone do this? we were truly blessed! then we saw the movie and realized the person was no doubt one of the poor saps who had eagerly bought tickets to multiple showings, only to discover that it sucked

it was a real bonanza for us, because it gave us something to be sarcastic about for the rest of the evening

anyway, we "dated" for another few weeks (i actually watched the deep space nine finale, which broadcast on June 2, at her house) and the last time i saw her there was some mild making out in a bus shelter, after which she ghosted me

which obviously i felt bad about but i looked her up years later and learned that she was a lesbian krav maga instructor now, which honestly tracked and explained quite a bit

but it is a period in my life i look back upon fondly, and so jar-jar et al will always have a place in my heart!!! ~fin~