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The dependable middle of the 2000s mall — graphic tees, bootcut jeans, and eagle-emblazoned hoodies pitched right between Abercrombie's attitude and the clearance racks. For millions of teenagers, American Eagle was simply where you shopped.
The first week of school came with homework before you'd learned anything: take home the stack of hardcover textbooks the teacher just issued and cover every single one. You either cut open a brown paper grocery bag and folded it into a snug jacket, or slid on a stretchy fabric cover in a color you actually liked. Then you brought them back the next day for the teacher to check.
For a few years, the future of computing was a laptop the size of a hardcover book with a screen you squinted at and a keyboard you learned to type on with your fingertips together. Netbooks were cheap, tiny, everywhere — the first computer a lot of kids ever owned — and then the iPad arrived, and within three years the entire category was gone.
A grid stamped inside the front cover: ISSUED TO / YEAR USED / CONDITION. On the first day you wrote your name in the column alongside every kid who'd had your copy before — sometimes going back a decade. You scanned the list for older siblings, anyone you recognized, anyone famous. The condition column warned: New, Good, Fair, Poor — and you'd pay the difference.