I waited three years for this?

December, 2006. Oh what a night.

Do you remember where you were?

I sure do. For that was when I somehow coerced a female into an evening out with me. We went to the movies. The film? Rocky Balboa, not surprisingly. That was also the last time I had been to a movie theater. Until last weekend.

I don't know what it was that brought me back. Maybe it was all the talk about the Oscars. Maybe it was the lack of anything better to do. Or maybe it simply took me this long to coerce another female into spending an evening with me. Whatever it was, the almost-three-and-a-half-year streak is over.

It will go down as one of the great streaks of all-time. Right up there with not drinking any carbonated beverages for sixty-three consecutive days in the late nineties, my 18-game winning streak in online Scrabble, and of course, "The Streak" by Ray Stevens.

So what did I see? Well, I considered the usual suspects -- The Blind Side, The Hurt Locker -- but you don't end a streak as impressive as this one with some run-of-the-mill Oscar-nominated Hollywood fluff. Also, neither of those were playing at the quadplex that we attended. No, our choices were Valentine's Day, Alice In Wonderland, Shutter Island, and Cop Out.

So naturally, we/I decided on Cop Out. If the streak was gonna die, it was going out with a classic. Co-starring Tracy Morgan and the incomparable Bruce Willis, along with special guest star Stiffler from American Pie, how could we go wrong?

The theater was pretty much state-of-the-art... for the 1980's. I half-expected to see a Tab dispenser on their soda fountain. And as someone who has only been to the movies twice in the past three-plus years, I won't attempt to do a movie review. But let me just say this was the best Bruce Willis movie I've seen since Sixth Sense.

Of course, it's also the first Bruce Willis movie I've seen since Sixth Sense. But now I'm just splitting hairs.

"Oh, what a night. Late December back in '63. What a very special time for me, 'cause I remember what a night..."

Did someone grant me three wishes that I wasn't aware of?

I don't know if any of you have noticed or not, but lately I have been drifting, aimlessly. I had no center, no direction. Sometimes it felt as if I were merely existing, rather than living. Well, I finally figured out what was missing in my life. A girl? A family? Motivation? Ambition? A social life?

No! Seinfeld!

It was revealed to me a couple of weeks ago when I saw a commercial for the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. And what were they promoting but a Seinfeld reunion!

Of course. How did I not see it before? In the eleven years since the show went off the air, I still haven't moved on. Oh sure, I have a pretty steady thing going with The Office now, but I've never really gotten over my one true love. To this day I still reference Seinfeld every chance I get, to the delight of all, I'm sure. And somewhere in that deepest part of my heart which holds my most secret desires and dreams, I clung to the past, and a tiny shred of hope that someday there would be a reunion.

Now the day I have been waiting for, lo, these many years has arrived. My ship has finally come in.

Of course, Curb Your Enthusiasm comes on HBO, which I don't have, but thankfully you can watch everything online these days. Not that I wouldn't have ordered HBO or found some way to get it illegally. That's not to imply that I'm getting any channels illegally right now, nor have I or would I ever. What I meant to say is that maybe I could get a free trial period of HBO from my cable or satellite provider--whose name happens to be Mason. As in, jar, or Dixon. He can also start your car or get into your house without any keys. And he only accepts cash, or ammunition.

Now if this had been the only piece of good news I received all year, that alone would have been enough to make this one of the best years of my life--right up there with the year I got an Atari, the year I discovered Clorox disinfectant wipes, and the year I stopped peeing the bed. But more good tidings were yet to come.

Days later, General Hospital posted a message on Facebook that Jonathan Jackson would be reprising his role as Lucky Spencer beginning in October.

This had been my dream! For years, I told the Darryls and anyone else who would listen that I wished the original Lucky would come back. (Also, that Frisco and Felicia would come back, and Robert and Anna and the WSB, but let's stick to one dream at a time here.) I could scarcely believe my eyes. I even Google news'd it to make sure it wasn't a hoax. It wasn't. No more weird middle Lucky or lame third Lucky. (Sure, third Lucky has lustrous hair and rugged good looks, but I need more. The character had become about as exciting as an all-day scoliosis screening.) At long last, the original Lucky is returning!

I simply cannot believe my luck. It's as if a genie visited me while I was in a deep sleep one night and granted me three wishes, two of which have already come true. I'm bursting! We're talking Tom-Cruise-on-Oprah's-couch happy. No, happy as a lark. I'm a lark jumping up and down on Oprah's couch.

So let this be a lesson to us all. People may tell you not to cling to the past, but clearly that has been proven wrong. And sure, most hopes and dreams die hard, never having been realized or even chased, but... uh, I need something uplifting here. Hmm..... well, anyway.

As for my third wish? I have considered several obvious possibilities: A Wham! reunion; that Tab would make a comeback; that just once I could play the word QUETZALS in Scrabble covering two triple word scores and get the maximum 347 possible points.

But in the end, I passed them all over. Now I don't want to jinx anything by telling you what I finally decided on, but I will give you a couple of clues.

Clue #1. Two words: Brandon. Walsh.

Clue #2. Blank-0-2-1-0.

Happy sleuthing!

"I'm a genie in a bottle. You gotta rub me the right way. If you wanna be with me, I can make your wish come true..."