As good as it gets

Fries and a chocolate shake.

An evening/early morning at Towson Diner was never complete without this dynamic duo. It mattered not which friends ordered them, for as soon as the shake arrived at the table accompanied by the fries in their crisp yet delicate glory, we would all partake equally. All four or five or ten of us would graciously pick up one fry at a time, dipping each in the milk shake and savoring the exquisite interplay of salt and sweetness.

Invariably, someone would say, "It doesn't get any better than this, man." And the rest of us would agree, laughing because we knew how true and untrue it was.

I think my high school friends and I spent more time at the Towson Diner than anywhere else, with the exception of school itself. The diner was always the place where we'd all wind up so that we could wind down together before saying good night. Many of my nights at the diner turned out to be as memorable as the events which directly preceded them, if not more so.

I remember going to the diner after watching the Fourth of July fireworks with a group of friends, including my new boyfriend. I tried to participate in the discussion but I made a fool of myself, distracted by the way his fingers interlaced with mine beneath the table.

I remember how my friends and I went to the diner after hearing a girl from our high school had died in a car accident. She was only sixteen. We sat in stunned silence under the fluorescent lights, and nothing seemed real except the sea-green opacity of the tabletop before us.

I remember the night after a graduation party when I sat by a window, alone with my best friend. He looked at the clock on the wall, looked at the cigarette in his hand, and then, fixing his eyes on a pepper shaker, he told me he was gay. I reached across the table for his hand and pressed it to my lips. "Hotel California" was playing in the background.

Even on the most uneventful of evenings, sitting in a familiar booth with several of my closest friends was the perfect ending. We would all settle in, order our communal fries and chocolate shake, and choose seven songs to play on the jukebox. Three songs cost a dollar, and seven cost two dollars, so we always got seven.

Four of the songs would vary; the other three songs were more or less set in stone: "More Than a Feeling" by Boston, "Motorcycle Drive-by" by Third Eye Blind, and "With Or Without You" by U2, which we would always play last. And all of us would sing along with Bono, starting softly and belting the last refrain, looking at each other's faces and feeling a closeness intensified by that very experience. For five minutes, we were in our own bubble, impenetrable by outside forces such as the stares of other people in the diner — or the chaotic state of our own personal lives.

And for at least five minutes, it truly didn't get any better than that.

Lee Conderacci is a freshman from Towson, Md.