One of my favorite things to do when my family would go to Atlanta each summer in the mid-1990s was visit the Warner Brothers Studio Store. There were two different locations that we would go to: one at the Lenox Square mall and one in the Underground Atlanta shopping district.

Back then superhero stuff was not nearly as prevalent as it is today. As a kid who loved comic books, it was rare to see my favorite characters gracing any store shelves. Walking into the Warner Brothers Store came with a special rush of excitement as larger-than-life statues of Michael Keaton’s Batman and Christopher Reeve’s Superman appeared to be bursting through the wall of the Underground location. In the summer of 1995 there was a big screen in the middle of the store showing a trailer for “Batman Forever.” The scene of Val Kilmer’s Bruce Wayne dropping down through a secret passage in his office and arriving in the Batcave was fascinating to me. I couldn’t wait to see the movie.

The Warner Brothers store had merchandise from my favorite show, “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” I barely knew anyone else who even watched the show at that time. (This was before I discovered all of my fellow FoLCs in the chatrooms of AOL!) The fact that the Lenox location of the WB Store actually had shirts with Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher on them seemed like I’d stepped into an alternate reality where everyone loved the same things that I did.

Old cartoons and commercials played throughout the store as well. The “Very Stylish Girl” jingle from one of the clips got stuck in our heads and would be referenced often by me and my siblings for years to come.

Most impressive of all were the animation cels that were for sale. Most cost hundreds of dollars; some were a thousand dollars or more. Actual cels that were used to create Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, and Batman The Animated Series were framed and on display, and could be yours if you had enough disposable income. I remember thinking that I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to have money to spend on things like that, and to have my own place where I could hang them up. I envisioned having a collectibles room in my house where I could proudly showcase the animation cels, mini-statues, and other novelties that I would undoubtedly be able to afford when I grew up.

Although the WB stores across America shuttered their doors in the early 2000s, there is still one location open at the Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California. I recently had the pleasure of visiting this location while on my first ever trip to the west coast. Walking into the store was like going back in time. On display were the actual Green Arrow, Flash, and Supergirl costumes worn by Stephen Amell, Grant Gustin, and Melissa Benoist respectively. Statues, shirts, books, coffee mugs and more from everything ranging from Harry Potter to Gilmore Girls filled shelves as far as the eye could see. I wandered the store with the same wide-eyed expression that my younger self would’ve had back in the 90s.

I didn’t buy anything.

Younger Me would probably be confused and disappointed that Grown-Up Me didn’t come back with a suitcase full of mini-busts and animation cels to adorn the walls of the collectibles room that I should surely have by now as an adult. For one thing, Younger Me seriously overestimated the amount of disposable income I would have. But for another thing, Grown-Up Me found that you can’t put a price on the best thing I would find at the Warner Brothers Store: the sense of nostalgia, wonder, and excitement that comes from being surrounded by so many things that you grew up loving.