Tinny Memories

During the 1993 holiday season I worked at the Toys R Us on Azusa Avenue near Arrow Highway in Covina, California. There's still a Toys R Us in that general area, but it's a different building than the one I worked in. The one that existed back in the '93 was a great bolshy, orange and brown monstrosity. When I walk into any Toys R Us now, I can't fully reckon with the fact that I used to work in one. Perhaps it's best that way. But I digress...

I worked the graveyard shift that season. And I also had another job working in a restaurant as a busboy/dishwasher/prep cook. My schedule was like this:

5pm- wake up.
5:30pm- go to restaurant job.
10:30pm- Leave restaurant job and head straight to Toys R Us (usually smelling like cooking grease)
11:00pm-7:00am- work at TRU.
7:30am- go to sleep.
Rinse and repeat

Fortunately I didn't do this for more than about two months. I think if I had I would have gotten really sick eventually.

Since this was the graveyard shift, the manager would turn the radio to Power 106, the disco station, and then broadcast it over the store's crappy intercom system. So, as a result I can't listen to any dance music from that era without being instantly transported to that time, that place. It's really eerie, but it gets me every time. Some examples:







and, of course:



The weird thing is, I've kind of grown to like all these songs. I don't normally like this kind of music and I don't exactly look back on that job fondly, but because they were such a constant presence I naturally grew fond of them.