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This summer, I was entertaining guests from overseas who had never been to America. It’s always interesting to see what others find novel and exciting about your own country, usually things that seem commonplace and mundane to us. Much like my first trip to England where I squealed in delight at every crumbling castle ruin, only to learn my hosts had gotten drunk, had sex, and sprayed graffiti on the bevy of ancient stones in their youth.

On a quest to show my foreign guests the beauty of the New England seashores, I drove them down the length of Cape Cod to Provincetown. But their excitement peaked before reaching what I considered the pinnacle of our destination, and they pressed their faces against the car windows, shouting, “Look! A drive-in movie theater! A drive-in movie theater!”

Granted, drive-ins have diminished drastically enough over the decades to make them a novelty even to us, although they are still actively doing business and peppered sporadically throughout most American states. And we clearly remember the days when going to the drive-in was the ultimate event on a summer evening.

I tried to shift my guests’ attention to the real scenery as we drove past. Hey, look at the sand dunes! How ‘bout that ocean, huh? I think I just saw a fish jump, did you see it? But they were no longer interested. They wanted to know about the drive-in. What was it like? How many films did they show in a night? How did the sound work? How did they line up the cars? Was it like what they’d seen in American films and TV shows like Happy Days or Grease?

I first assured them that the era represented in Happy Days was before my time, and that I wasn’t even sperm yet when greasers used switch blade combs and fondled poodle skirts in the back of souped-up hot rods. They seemed disappointed, so I tried to recall what drive-in movies meant to me as a kid growing up in an American suburb.

I told them about being dumped, pajama clad into the back of a station wagon with pillows and blankets, and being forced to go to sleep after the initial kids movie, while the parents watched the R-rated feature. Of course we never went to sleep. My mother had some sort of radar though, and her hand would snake its way into the back and slap our heads down each time we tried to peek at the adult material playing out on the screen.

But as we got a bit older, inevitably there was that one friend who had a car. With five under-agers cramped into the trunk of an old Impala, we’d glide into the Sunset Drive-in, gleeful about the latest hack-em-up horror movie on the big screen. There was something simply glorious about being out after dark in the night air, nacho squeeze-cheese dribbling down your chin while Jason from Friday the 13th stalked and slaughtered the counselors of Camp Crystal Lake.

“That doesn’t sound like fun; it sounds scary,” my foreign guests commented.

“No,” I replied, “that wasn’t the best part. The best part was when you had to use the bathroom! Because the creaky, rotting-wood doors of the restroom stalls gave you that summer camp feel and, if you were lucky enough to be in there alone, you could just imagine Jason sneaking in with his knife while your heart hammered and you power-peed as fast as possible before running back to the car.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun either.”

I tried to explain that it was the mood the drive-in created, a feel of not just watching the film, but being a part of something electric, as alive as the summer bugs we battled with useless Pic mosquito coils burning lazily on the Impala’s dashboard.

My guests asked if waitresses wearing roller skates had brought us our popcorn. I told that they hadn’t. We’d had to go to the snack bar and get our own popcorn.

At this point they lost interest and moved on to commentary on the sand dunes and sea gulls. I considered pleading my case further, perhaps giving details about dancing hotdogs and the beauty of snack bar intermission.

But in the end I succumbed to the truth that my drive-in experience was perhaps not one of universal appeal. Perhaps it’s just one of those personal things that meant something different to everyone. You simply had to be there.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m craving a chili dog with non-dairy squeeze-cheese.

Adrienne Jones is a speculative fiction and award winning humor writer, and author of the books Brine, Gypsies Stole My Tequila and The Hoax. Despite a well publicized belief in fish people, she’s managed to convince most she’s perfectly normal. Visit her author site at www.hoaxthenovel.com.

All three of Adrienne’s books can be ordered from the Apex aStore.