Today I bought a VHS tape for ten cents. A VHS tape that most likely cost $19.99 when it was new. The movie? Top Gun. I first saw it in 1986, then several hundred more times in consequent years. Once, I saw it at the IMAX theatre. Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis’s sloppy kiss spit stretched metres long and we all shrank back against our seats in horror.

Yesterday I was thinking about Top Gun because @bigpointguy, my father-in-law, who is staying with us, found Beverly Hills Cop 3 on Netflix and put it on. I wasn’t watching, but the tinny synthesizer music reminded me of Top Gun and I had a moment where I remembered that I didn’t own my favourite teenage movie, and another moment where I felt sad about it.

Today, I was at a garage sale in our neighbourhood and I saw the VHS tape of Top Gun and I said, “Oh, I NEED THAT,” and Arlo said, “Well, you don’t really NEED it, do you? You just WANT it a lot?” I conceded his point and laughed politely with the woman whose house it was, who was chuckling at me being schooled by a nearly seven year old, but privately I was responding, “No, this is a case of need and if you argue with me about it I will write you out of the will.”

Which I don’t have, but I should, otherwise how will they know who to leave all my important VHS tapes to when I die?