Remember holding down the R button ‘cause you thought that it made you go faster like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Remember throwing a banana peel at your friend’s older brother and cutting a corner like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Remember doing donuts in front of Princess Peach’s Castle while you were in 8th place ‘cause who gives a fuck like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Remember when Matt’s dad dropped him off at your apartment with no warning at nine p.m. on a school night which was kind of weird but whatever, and you were excited ‘cause you’d never had a friend over after dark unless it was a sleepover, and Matt said Rainbow Road was a Möbius strip so you could drive it forever like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Remember sitting with your mom on the 217, where there was no R button, just a steering wheel, and you weren’t the one driving? (No E.)
Remember when Matt moved to Colorado, and you called him long distance on your grandparents’ red rotary phone, and he said he was going to hack into North Korea to launch a nuclear missile at your grandparents’ house, and you kind of believed him? (No E.)
Remember when Matt came back to visit with his older brother Douglass, who tried to use the gay porn VHS tape that he found on the sidewalk as an opening to hit on your mom, who was only 27, and your mom called Matt’s dad to pick them up early, and you never saw Matt again? (No E.)
Remember getting high as fuck in Adam’s parents’ well-appointed home theater the summer after Berkeley, and crying while you played Toad’s Turnpike, which had always been your favorite level ‘cause it was the most realistic, with its compact cars and long-haul trucks, as if you weren’t a child driving a fake go-kart in circles but an adult going somewhere normal, like the frozen yogurt place you’d visit with your grandpa in Echo Park, which isn’t there anymore, unlike this video game, which stays the same no matter how many years have passed, containing memories that feel private even though you share them with millions of others, like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE