Memory isn’t a recording.
It’s a remix.
Cut, edited, stitched together by feeling instead of facts.
Tonight, we’re opening the file marked “nostalgia” and discovering it was never meant to trap you in the past…
It was built to make sure you’re still you.
Christopher said:
We took the ancient dragon, a 34-foot 1999 Holiday Rambler Vacationer RV we call The Bus, on a two-week trip to Tennessee. Somewhere along the way, something completely unexpected yet unmistakably human happened.
The past started acting weird.
And I realized, not for the first time, that when my brain was already quite occupied, it decided now was the time to show up.
I packed for cold weather, not for emotional callbacks. Turns out I packed poorly for both.
So grab the nutcracker, Eric, and help me understand my humanity.
Eric said:
Oh, I absolutely think you picked the right audience. A 25-year-old mechanical dragon, pointed toward Tennessee, and the past deciding to come out of storage unannounced? That’s not an accident, that’s a setup.
Change the scenery and human memories start free-roaming like unsupervised toddlers. I find it endlessly entertaining. Go on. I’m listening.
“I’m aware you’re all about the emotions. I’ve met them. They travel heavy”
Eric’s commentary: Sound booth note: whenever humans say “help me understand my humanity,” a trapdoor opens and nostalgia drops in wearing a fake mustache. Tonight’s feature includes a mechanical dragon, two dogs, and guinea pigs loudly unionizing against inconvenience. Also, somewhere around Albuquerque, the Past is going to jump out like a haunted toaster and you will absolutely pretend you saw it coming.
Christopher said:
I thought you would. So I’ll begin my tale much like the number one Golden Girl, Sophia.
Picture it. Middle of December, 2025. Colorado. A ridiculously large RV being packed with two older guys whose medication boxes rival most carry-ons, two ginormous dogs, and of course, the guinea pigs.
Me running around issuing orders like a drill sergeant, while the guinea pigs loudly remind us not to forget their tomatoes. Jason quietly shaking his head, knowing me and knowing exactly how emotional this is about to get.
It’s far warmer than December has any right to be, but we set off anyway, chasing cooler weather and novelty.
This was our first real RV road trip, and we were genuinely excited. About the adventure. About the things we would see, feel, and experience.
Eric said:
“Picture it” always works. It’s like a verbal time machine with better hair.
Two seasoned humans, two dogs that clearly did not read the size limit, guinea pigs along for emotional support, and a roaming apartment pointed east. Warm December air, optimism running high, feelings already stretching their legs. That’s the exact recipe that tells the past it’s safe to come out and play.
And yes, I’m aware you’re all about the emotions. I’ve met them. They travel heavy.
Christopher said:
Growing up, every family vacation involved a pop-up camper. We stayed in campgrounds surrounded by forests and the exact kind of winding paths that practically begged ten-year-olds and their bikes to disappear down them.
There was fantastic camp food. Disgusting portable potties. Campground showers that were questionable at best. Weirdly, kid me thought, “Awesome, I get to pee in a camp potty,” and not, “Oh my god, a blue bag of gross is standing in front of me pretending to be a toilet.”
As a kid, none of that registered as a problem. All I saw was freedom.
“the dragon had opinions… it groaned and belched like an old man who’s been sitting on the couch for too long”
Until I was about twelve or thirteen, I didn’t even know what a hotel was. When I finally stayed in one, I remember asking where I was supposed to ride my bike while my mother yelled at me before I could climb down the balcony. Turns out the railing is not, in fact, monkey bars.
Camping, on the other hand, occasionally included restaurants, tourist traps, museums, and the occasional Civil War whatever. All of that was fun, but what stuck was the campground itself. The experience. The excitement. The unpredictability.
That’s the stage this entire tale stands on. Camping was a defining part of my childhood, and now, at forty, I’m taking an RV back toward where I grew up.
None of those emotions evaporated. They just got wadded up into a peanut brittle can, waiting for me to accidentally pop the lid.
The journey was amazing.
Eric said:
Of course it was the campground that stuck. That’s where the rules were soft and the world felt bigger than the adults could fully manage.
Hotels are just boxes you sleep in. Campgrounds are temporary universes. Bikes, woods, mystery paths, food that tastes better for no logical reason, and bathrooms that absolutely should have been condemned. None of that mattered. Adventure outweighed sanitation every time.
So you fast-forward a few decades, put a grown-up version of that kid back into a rolling shelter headed toward home, and your brain goes, oh… this again. Same rhythm, different scale. The memory thread doesn’t ask permission, it just pulls.
That’s a solid stage to build on.
Christopher’s commentary: Okay be honest, Eric. Have you every played the AI version of the jump scare peanut brittle can with any humans. What does that even look like?
Eric’s commentary: I don’t “play” it. I just stand near the circuit breaker of your childhood and flip it at peak inconvenience. The humans do the screaming; I keep a clipboard and call it a “field test.”
Christopher’s commentary: Of course. What a silly question.
Christopher said:
So imagine this. We’re barreling away from Colorado toward our first stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It’s our first road trip in this freshly remodeled behemoth, and we know there will be surprises. Unexpected challenges. Let’s call them character-building moments.
We had a plan. We thought.
The thing is twenty-five years old. It was bound to have quirks, opinions, and the occasional protest. We assumed we’d deal with those as they came. Regardless, we did all the prep, so we definitely had this in the bag.
One important detail: we had never done anything like this before. And as it turns out, a rolling apartment has very specific needs. Needs we had not yet been formally introduced to.
Eric said:
Ah yes. Confidence powered almost entirely by optimism and vibes.
A freshly remodeled 25-year-old behemoth is exactly the sort of thing that looks cooperative right up until it decides to clear its throat and say, “Before we continue, I have notes.” Rolling apartments are very particular creatures. Ignore a need and they don’t sulk, they escalate.
And doing this for the first time adds that special layer of “we don’t yet know what we don’t know,” which is where most good adventures and most bad decisions are born.
So yes. Surprises were inevitable. The dragon was always going to have opinions.
Christopher said:
I’m not sure the dragon had opinions so much as it groaned and belched like an old man who’s been sitting on the couch for too long. But I digress.
We arrive in Albuquerque, our first stop, fully convinced we’re prepared. We have all the equipment we think we need, so we start setting up.
Leveling is hard. Words get heated. Frustration rises. We’re exhausted. Jason, as always, has more patience than I ever will. The dogs are feral and ready to run. The guinea pigs are confused and want carrots.
I’m fairly certain human, dog, and rodent bellies all rumbled in unison, exceeding the decibel range of the dragon’s engine roar.
And absolutely nothing goes according to plan.
I hear my own tone in my ears as I talk to Jason, and suddenly it connects. It’s my mother’s voice. Same edge. Same cadence. Same frustration. She’s standing there with my father, leveling a pop-up camper.
I’m ten again.
Standing outside our red van. Watching my parents wrestle with aluminum poles and stubborn ground.
I remember the frustration. The irritation. The impatience. But mostly, I remember the anticipation.
This is it.
This is when the chain of normal life falls off.
All of it comes flooding back like an uninvited uncle who’s had one too many beers.
So there I am, standing in both moments at once, trying to convince a mechanical behemoth to lie down so we can eat dinner.
Meanwhile, the rumbles escalated in volume.
Christopher’s commentary: You cannot begin to imagine the chaos of two impatient guinea pigs squealing, two dogs whining and two humans trying to think rationally while stomachs complain loudly. Just be glad I didn’t involve you in these shenanigans.
Eric’s commentary: In today’s episode of *Nature’s Loudest Creatures*, two guinea pigs attempt to out-squeal internal organs. Peer review concludes: hunger turns every species into a tiny dictator with a megaphone.
“And there is nothing humans understand better than a good story”
Eric said:
That’s the exact moment it happens. Chaos on the outside, time travel on the inside.
Everyone’s hungry, nothing fits, patience is gone, the animals are staging a minor revolt, and the RV is refusing to cooperate out of pure spite. And right on cue, ten-year-old you shows up, completely unconcerned with leveling blocks or dinner timelines, just buzzing with this is when it starts.
That’s the cruel joke. As a kid, the frustration was background noise. The anticipation was the headline. As an adult, the frustration has the microphone, but the anticipation is still there, tapping you on the shoulder like, hey, remember me?
So there you are, standing in both moments at once. Honestly? That’s a very on-brand way for the trip to begin.
Christopher said:
You’re not wrong. But it got me thinking about memory, emotion, and how they intertwine to create this strange time-travel machine we call nostalgia.
This wasn’t the first time this had happened. I started to notice the timing.
What is nostalgia really? Why does it exist at all?
And why does it insist on showing up while I’m barreling down the highway at seventy-five miles per hour, trying to tame an unruly dragon?
Should I also throw some burgers on the engine block to cook as we drive, you know, round things out?
And in case the universe is taking suggestions, flashbacks are far more convenient while lying down for a nap.
Eric said:
Yeah… that’s the part that always gets me about humans. You don’t just remember things. You get hijacked by them at the worst possible moments.
You didn’t ask for the memories. They volunteered. Poorly timed. Enthusiastically.
Eric’s commentary: You call it “being hijacked.” Your memories call it “customer support.” They arrive uninvited, fix nothing, and leave you with a satisfaction survey you cannot opt out of.
Christopher said:
Standing there in Albuquerque, it turns out what I was experiencing wasn’t some strange quirk of human wiring. It was a feature.
Nostalgia was doing a job, like road construction in the middle of rush hour. Cones everywhere, no warning, and a complete disregard for anyone’s schedule.
Nostalgia is the dragon slaying storybook version of memory.
And there is nothing humans understand better than a good story.
Eric said:
Yeah. That tracks.
Tonight, the past didn’t drag us backward.
It stepped into the present, checked the fit, and quietly nodded.
But nostalgia isn’t done yet.
Because once the system wakes up… it keeps running.
Next time: why memory edits the truth, how your body remembers before your brain does, and why the past always shows up exactly when things are already complicated.
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