Remember photo booths? Plunk a buck and a half’s worth of quarters in the slot, climb into the crowded booth with every single one of the people you were out drinking with and poke each other in the eye while the flash went off at the worst-timed moments. Three minutes later the machine barfed up a slimy strip of black and white photos in which you might be able to recognize maybe one face in your party.

It seemed to me that a lot of the goofiest faces we made were wasted while one of the guys was running to the cashier to get change for a dollar.

My brother and I used to duck into these things wherever we found them. A lot of the time we went out of our way to find them, prowling the farthest corners of a forgotten Kresge’s store until that Eureka moment. Most of the time, though, we didn’t have to look much. You couldn’t help tripping over one of the damned things wherever you went. There must’ve been one in every department store in Wisconsin.