Somewhere on the dancing-for-money continuum between an organ grinder’s monkey and a stripper lies this experience of Benji dancing for an old lady’s pennies in a doctor’s waiting room.

In retrospect, I’m not sure if it was worth it. Still, in life you have to decide what you believe in and stand up for it. If you are middle-class, suburban, college kids in a summer job and all you have in your life to stand up for is whether to watch talk shows or soap operas, you still must stick with your convictions. To outsiders, this conflict may seem trivial or even ridiculous. However, if you have ever been forced to watch Victor, Cricket, and the rest of those overacting, melodramatic jackasses on “The Young and the Restless” then you know what I’m saying.

Among the boy demographic, Diet Coke — the choice of perpetually dieting middle-aged women everywhere — was the soda equivalent of bellbottoms.

The funniest “part” of the Spare Parts Room, though, were the parts themselves. We exploited any potential for laughs, no matter how childish. One part was called “Assy plasma” meaning, I guess, “plasma assembly.” So it went then, that if someone got caught farting while counting a shelf in the back of the room, they had “assy plasma.”

I’ma make it: Asheville, Idaho, Texas, Paris, Buffalo, Chicago Suburbs, Disneyland, Vancouver, Latta (South Carolina), Australia, Southern Cali, Thailand, India, Alaska, Miami, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and on a Griswold-style cross country trip.