If it weren’t for the telltale guitar-printed carpeting, the lounge might pass for something on a cruise ship: raised daises and brass rails and long tables spaced around the stage. There’s a standing-room-only section in front of the bar, but if you come a little early, as I did, they’ll seat you at a big table with whomever else happens to be there.

I sat with Brent and Cindy–an old-time Furs fan and a Furs novice, respectively. We chatted a bit as we waited for the opening act, Roman Candle, to come on. (They never did.) Assorted 80s tunes that would never have been caught dead together (“Villiers Terrace” by Echo and the Bunnymen alongside “Xanadu” by Olivia Newton-John) played from an iPod in the control booth ahead.

Brent and Cindy both worked on Wall Street. I asked more questions than I answered, mentioning that I was from Canada, that I used to work in publishing, but was now, well, doing other things. Cindy, a slight brunette in her late twenties, told me she’d been in banking since graduation. A glance told me the earrings were diamond, the sweater cashmere. Back at my apartment, jeans and a black cotton top seemed good enough for a post-punk concert, but here in this eclectic crowd, it was difficult to determine just who was under–or over–dressed.

Brent leaned across the table, “So what do you do now, Nora?” He was about forty–my age. The kind of polo-shirted student council type I rarely crossed orbits with in high school, since grown up to be a leather-pant-wearing power-player with a brokerage firm.

But I didn’t have to answer. A hush fell over the room as the house darkened. The stage lights went up and the band came on.

“Sister Europe” was the way it started. A looser and grittier sound than the 1980 recording. Richard Butler’s voice somehow both languid and rasping. Short hair now. Glasses. Black-suited. Arms mapping out a lazy semaphore.

“Love My Way,” “Into You Like a Train,” “Mr. Jones.” The Furs played them all. But among the crowd, a groundswell was rising: “Pretty in Pink!”

“Pretty in Pink!” hollered Brent.

“Pretty in Pink!” said Cindy, though not very loudly. The song that John Hughes named the movie after. The one song the Brents and Cindys I knew in high school would always know.

What I was waiting for was “India.” It had been some 25 years since its whisper-quiet opening first stopped me in my tracks. I was standing barefoot on the wood floor at my high school friend Fiona’s. She’d been showing me how to tease up my hair with hairspray. “Not too much, though. That’s for posers.” With enough black eyeliner, I’d look like Siouxsie Sioux.

“The Ghost in You.” The first set ended, leaving our table silent. I fiddled with the red swizzle stick in my bourbon as Cindy sipped her wine.

Brent leaned over to me again across the polyester tablecloth: “So, Nora–you never told us what you do.”

All right. For me, anyway, this kind of thing takes practice. “I’m a writer.”

“For a newspaper?” Cindy asked.

“No–I’m working on a novel.”

“Oh,” said Cindy. “Mystery or romance?” And then, “When’s it coming out?”

The questions. The question. But before I could start to answer, Brent looked at me with something like understanding. In a single stroke, he steered things northward: “I go to Canada a lot for the skiing. Whistler, Banff, Blue Mountain, I’ve done them all.”

Blue Mountain? I knew that place and wanted to ask how he did. But I decided to leave it–the house lights were already dimming for the second set.

“Pretty in Pink.” Richard Butler kept his cool, but the crowd went crazy. A man in a killer whale t-shirt shouted something incomprehensible. A woman with a platinum ‘do like Debbie Harry stood up on a tufted chair. Brent was singing along, and so was Cindy. Waving their tanned arms and bobbing their heads.

It was the kind of scene I’ve always made a point of avoiding. The kind of scene I would have taken great exception to in 1982.

But it’s 2007, I’m at BB King’s, and the Furs are playing. I think Brent and Cindy are kind of sweet.

Later on, when we had the stroke of luck we expected four and a half years earlier, we moved to a place three times bigger, overlooking the Queensboro Bridge. We could finally get our long-lost things from storage. We splurged on movers. They carried everything down five flights of steps, made a stop at Chelsea Storage, then carried it all up four more flights to our new place.

We were ecstatic. We spent the weekend dusting furniture and unpacking boxes of books that hadn’t seen daylight in five years.

But there was a problem. There was still a bunch of stuff left in storage that had to be disposed of. We’d discovered that some of the things we’d done without for five years we actually preferred to do without. But rent for the unit—$134.60—was due Tuesday unless we emptied it and left it broom-clean. I worked from home. My hours were flexible. I’d take care of things.

I was a model of ruthless efficiency. I arranged to have a furniture dealer who rented out props to movies come meet me at the facility. I had a 1915 maple dresser with a swivel mirror that I’d refinished myself in the backyard in 11th grade. No sentimentality. No prisoners. The dealer only offered me $40, but I ran a quick cost-benefit analysis and took it on the condition that he’d cart away the folding chairs and broken washstand too.

Now came the tricky part. Big, heavy stuff to throw away. There was the 1920s battleship of a typewriter my mother had bought in the 60s when her office upgraded to electric. It was a hunk of cast iron weighing a good thirty pounds (the dealer refused to take it), black, with beautiful white keys and the name L.C. Smith in worn, gold paint. And there were a couple of big, bulky computer monitors too. I bought them cheap when my old office upgraded.

I put everything on the trolley Chelsea Storage provided, and wheeled it to the glassed-in office downstairs. "Is there somewhere I can get rid of this?" "Nowhere here," said the guy on duty, "But there’s a dumpster around the corner on 22nd. Trolleys have to stay here, though."

Well, I paid to lift weights at the gym, so why not do this for free? I hoisted the L.C. Smith off the trolley, and put it on the edge of the loading dock. I hopped down to sidewalk level and reached up, easing it into my arms. I shuffled along 23rd with the monster braced against my belly.

I finally reached the dumpster around the corner. There were a couple of guys from the warehouse there, taking out the trash. When they caught sight of my L.C. Smith, they said they’d take it. Somewhere deep inside the warehouse they were keeping a "museum."

One down, two to go. I grabbed the first monitor, a bulky whale of a thing. I was tired from my last trip and my arms were trembling. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. After about half a block, though, a man from the garage across the street shouted out to me, "Does that still work?" Yes, thank God. "I have another one too," I told him. I’d be back in a few minutes’ time.

I walked back to Chelsea Storage. Sweat was trickling down my back. I brushed the dust off the front of my shirt and off my black cotton pants. I stretched my arms and shook out my hands. Almost there. After this was done, I’d go home and lie down in the bath.

The last monitor was sitting on the edge of the trolley. OK, almost there. I did a deep knee bend and reached forward. Rrriiiip. I stopped short, frozen. A roar of laughter came from the office. I felt a cold breeze at the seat of my pants. I remembered I was wearing a thong.

I shuffled to the ladies room to check out the damage. The guys in the office all turned away. It was worse than I thought. A tear in the fabric along the seat seam, a good six inches. I rifled through my purse. Safety pin? Bandaid? Paper clip? Nothing. I was screwed.

I went back to the loading dock. Maybe nobody noticed. Maybe they were just laughing at something else. I didn’t have enough time to go home and change, then come back again before closing. I’d just walk, you know, carefully.

A man in coveralls came up to me. I acted casual. "Do you need help?" He was a tall Jamaican with a lilting accent. I tried to act like everything was normal. "You mean carrying stuff?" "No." His face was serious. "Your pants broke." I started to laugh manically. "It’s not funny," he said. "Look, I have a t-shirt underneath. You can tie it around your waist." "OK," I said. My eyes were tearing up.

With Winston’s t-shirt on, I hauled away the last monitor, then hailed a cab. Once I got home I washed the shirt, and mailed it back to Chelsea Storage with a thank-you note. The pants weren’t salvageable, so I threw them away—along with all my thongs. I’m sorry now about the typewriter, but I’m glad it’s in a museum.