When I started dating my wife in the mid-'90s, I started accompanying her on her annual early-September trip to the Toronto International FIlm Festival. The first year we went together, she took me to the original Sam's and I spent two hours and C$300 in the greatest record store I had ever been in.

And as we were leaving, she said the most unintentionally cruel thing she has ever said to me in the last 30 years:

"You should have seen it in the mid-'80s when it was REALLY good."