I had a community college instructor (circa late 80s-early 90s) who forebade us to turn in papers printed on dot matrix printers. Ink was so light!! I did love ripping the perforated strips off the sides…God, I’m old
Yes! 7th grade we had "open computer lab" on Friday where we either could either play Sim City v. 1.0 or print crap out from Print Shop on our B/W Macintosh computers.
You had to get special permission for a banner.
We were still doing that in 87! LOL!
Mom would give us money (75 cents) to even get some from the vending machine in the front of Kmart when she was checking out.
I was 10 when I read “Forever,” and there’s a scene where they’re making out on the beach, and the protagonist thinks “I could feel something hard pressing against my leg, and I knew it wasn’t his keys.” And I remember thinking “Huh, I wonder what it was?” and being so frustrated that they never let the readers in on the secret!
Two point seatbelts were a thing, and not required to wear them by law.
"Non smoking is full. Would you like smoking or to wait?"
TV went CLUNK when you switched between channels, and not all 12 channels even had anything.
Jane Jetson was 33, when Judy was 15. George Jetson was 40. And no one thought that was odd.
Challenger was flying to space and back.
Mooky Fraggle wore her hair down.
Birthday parties at McDonald's were awesome. Big Mac came in styrofoam.
Mom got us home from the hospital holding us in her arms for the car ride.
Dad had to bring a wad of cash for a week long vacation trip because no body takes out of state checks.
Han shot first
OMG! You just reminded me the time I won a Wonder Woman iron on transfer from the local fair. I pestered my dad to iron it on one of my white shirts because I couldn't trust my mom to do it right (she would sometimes forget about the iron and singed our shirts). I was so happy and wore the hell out of that Wonder Woman shirt for years!
I watched Empire Strikes Back at a drive-in, in a wood panel station wagon.
...technically from the other side of the drive-in because my parents were there for another movie.
My brothers used to bite off the end and then blow-dart the hot filling at each other. That filling was SO hot - I'm surprised no one ever ended up in the ER!
There weren't school shootings.
Or cops stationed at schools.
Nudie mags were freely accessible and on display in some c-stores and used bookstores.
Cartons of cigarettes were stocked in normal aisles of stores like any other product.
Shitty beer but plentuful in 40oz and also wine coolers that came in 2 liter bottles.
Pretty sure I ate lead paint chips.
And weed cost 10 bucks a gram for like ever.
Reading between the lines: I definitely had poor supervision.
It was my turn for the cereal prize, so I reached to the bottom of a box of Frankenberry to retrieve it and found two! Then I poured a bowl of cereal and two more came out! We ended up with four different characters (pencil top erasers), one for each kid and one for our mom. It was such a thrill!
I chose Boo Berry.
I had to circle what I wanted for Christmas in a Sears catalog.
I tried to be the 5th caller into a radio station using a rotary phone.
I survived many Evel Knievel stunts on my bike.
I once knocked myself cold and laid unconscious in our front yard for two hours. I was eight years old. This happened I when a tire swing I made broke and I smacked my head on a brick walkway. When I woke up and wandered around to the back door, I passed my drunken stepfather; he said, “Wuts the matter with you, crybaby?” When I staggered into the house where my mother was smoking a cigarette and watching a soap opera, I was told to “stop whining.”
When we went to the video rental store we rented a vcr, too, that came in a plastic suitcase. And giggled like fiends every time a grownup went through the swinging saloon doors into the naughty movie room.
Mr. Rodgers taught me how to make a (sort of) healthy snack by wrapping a banana with a cheese slice for when one was hungry with no one to feed then, and this very practical knowledge was applied multiple times.
I only had to dial 4 numbers for calls inside town. Any calls out of town, even less than 15 miles, was long distance and was charged by length of the call. Then Ma Bell got broke up, and every new phone company had a commercial about their long-distance plan. Ugh.
I sent away for Grateful Dead tickets with a decorated self-addressed stamped envelope.
Also, multiple Swatches on the same wrist were a thing. It makes a lot less sense to me now than it did then.
When I was nine, I hiked with three friends from our urban neighborhood to the base of a 9000 ft. mountain, the halfway up. 3 hours and 16 miles later, after getting home, parents asked where we had been. When we told them, they said it sounded like fun.
I remember drinking New Coke and thinking it tasted like garbage. Then Coca Cola realized everyone hated it too so they rebranded good old fashioned regular coke as Original Recipe with that cool circle design.
weirdest thing for me about being GenX is I remember in the early 90’s our generation pushing back on racism and supporting LGBTQ rights etc… then all of sudden many years later its happening all over again as if somehow we backslide sometime between the late 90s and early 2000’s back to not supporting these things and now they’re issues again that need to be supported and brought to the focus. I thought we fixed these problems in the early 90’s.
I get what you're saying, but until gay marriage was legalized, I don't think they were really "fixed." We had a social revolution that wasn't really followed by a policy revolution because for whatever reasons (*cough* profit), America hasn't been allowed to make many positive legislative changes for the citizenry since the '80s or earlier.
My parents didn't notice how sick I was that I developed rheumatic fever, spent a week in PICU and now have the beginnings of CHF. Yeah, you're fine, kid shake it off.
The first computer game (not Atari or arcade game) I played was loaded onto my computer from a cassette tape inside a tape player from Radio Shack. I caught that tricky Wumpus, too.
My mom regularly left me unattended in the back seat of the car while she went into the store. No one ever bothered me. I could crank the window if I got hot or bored.
This was in unincorporated South Miami, when it was still called Dade County and had one area code.
- Listened to Elvis Live in Concert on 8-track
- watched Donny and Marie on the tiny TV in the kitchen while my sister watched Sonny and Cher on the big TV (we would trade off every week)
- Flew on domestic and international flights that had smoking and non-smoking; got burned on the face by some guy’s cigarette when I was trying to go to the bathroom and he wasn’t paying attention, in retrospect I’m lucky he missed my eye
- received K-Tel’s mix tape The Beat for Christmas and wore that thing out - first time I ever heard Depeche Mode, The Waitresses, Split Enz, etc.
- Love’s Baby Soft perfume, bath salts, powder…
- I had a glow in the dark Enterprise model that I built with my dad hanging in my bedroom
- used to ride the bus into downtown Burlington, VT, and walk around by myself all day (Bernie Sanders was mayor at the time)
- my first car was a ‘77 Pinto station wagon, stick shift. I still love to drive a stick shift and I’m looking for one for my daughter. I think everyone should know how to drive a stick!
- I worked at Hardee’s, was a store manager for Contempo Casuals, and also a manager for Musicland. :)
Mr. Snuffleupagus was a figment of Big Birds imagination
Made me soooooo mad no one believed him.
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Or on drugs
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This comment is magnificent.
I remember that!!
… we printed Happy Birthday banners on lengths of computer paper with Print Shop on our Tandy 1000.
F me. I’m barely GenX and I did this shit several times (on a Commodore 64 though).
We had both a Tandy 1000 and a Commodore 64.. They were awesome!
Dot matrix rocked!
I had a community college instructor (circa late 80s-early 90s) who forebade us to turn in papers printed on dot matrix printers. Ink was so light!! I did love ripping the perforated strips off the sides…God, I’m old
Tractor feeeeeeeeed
TRS-80 and a DMP-132
Yes! 7th grade we had "open computer lab" on Friday where we either could either play Sim City v. 1.0 or print crap out from Print Shop on our B/W Macintosh computers. You had to get special permission for a banner.
My Ding Dongs came in foil wrappers.
Couldn’t afford condoms, huh?
Seriously, rubbers were expensive and embarrassing to buy. They were behind the counter, you had to ask for them. 🙈
Take my upvote, you magnificent bastard.
I came in socks you rich bastard
I was the remote control for the TV.
I was the antenna
We had to let the TV warm up for 10 minutes before the show.
You could hear The Muppet Show before you saw it, and it was a horrible few minutes.
Aluminum foil antenna anyone?
I was in charge of getting the foil as a last resort and contorting myself until we found a good picture
And we played video games on channel 3
I saw E.T. in the movie 🍿 theater.
SAMMMMMMEEEE!!! It was my first movie ever.
Same here! Also saw Dark Crystal in the theater around the same time.
I walked to the convenience store with a note from Mom so I could buy her cigarettes.
“Please sell my son,, two packs of More Menthols
Signed,
Mom
We just went to the hospital down the block that had a cigarette machine in lobby.
cigarette machines were the best. i absolutely LOVED pulling the plunger. was my favorite thing.
We walked into the tavern in broad daylight to buy candy bars.
I do miss the freedom of my youth.
We were still doing that in 87! LOL! Mom would give us money (75 cents) to even get some from the vending machine in the front of Kmart when she was checking out.
Same!
My first video game was Pong.
My favorite. Played it obsessively.
My chewing gum had a liquid center
My bangs didn’t all fit in my 7th grade picture.
Guilty for this too
I layered my scrunchy socks
I alternated the order from one foot to the other.
You rebel, you!
But did you have jelly shoes?
And the complementary blisters!
Or two polos on top of each other!
I learned about puberty from Judy Blume
I was 10 when I read “Forever,” and there’s a scene where they’re making out on the beach, and the protagonist thinks “I could feel something hard pressing against my leg, and I knew it wasn’t his keys.” And I remember thinking “Huh, I wonder what it was?” and being so frustrated that they never let the readers in on the secret!
Paying highway tolls to actual people. (And holding my dads beer while he dug in his pocket for change)
I recorded top 40 songs on my cassette tape so I can play them later.
And used to pray the DJ wouldn't talk all over it.
I still remember mine, my grandmother’s, aunt’s, and childhood best friends phone numbers.
Two point seatbelts were a thing, and not required to wear them by law. "Non smoking is full. Would you like smoking or to wait?" TV went CLUNK when you switched between channels, and not all 12 channels even had anything. Jane Jetson was 33, when Judy was 15. George Jetson was 40. And no one thought that was odd. Challenger was flying to space and back. Mooky Fraggle wore her hair down. Birthday parties at McDonald's were awesome. Big Mac came in styrofoam. Mom got us home from the hospital holding us in her arms for the car ride. Dad had to bring a wad of cash for a week long vacation trip because no body takes out of state checks. Han shot first
I had jelly shoes in grade school and hated the way they felt but they were soooo pretty!
And soooo sweaty!
They really were
They were so uncomfortable, but I wore them like a good Gen-X girl! 🤣
I remember when Madonna became famous.
I remember when she performed "Like A Virgin" on MTV & conservative people were all up in arms. Too provocative!
The graphics on my t shirt were ironed on.
OMG! You just reminded me the time I won a Wonder Woman iron on transfer from the local fair. I pestered my dad to iron it on one of my white shirts because I couldn't trust my mom to do it right (she would sometimes forget about the iron and singed our shirts). I was so happy and wore the hell out of that Wonder Woman shirt for years!
I watched Empire Strikes Back at a drive-in, in a wood panel station wagon. ...technically from the other side of the drive-in because my parents were there for another movie.
I saw it from the backseat of a '79 T Bird.
Lucky!! I got to see Jaws at the drive in. A 60 ft man hungry shark made sure that the ocean is permanently off limits.
There were 2 editions of the newspaper, morning & evening.
I remember when MTV started.
Video Killed the Radio Star!
I remember the day! August 1st 1981!
I stayed home to watch Thiller debut.
My apple pies were fried.
My brothers used to bite off the end and then blow-dart the hot filling at each other. That filling was SO hot - I'm surprised no one ever ended up in the ER!
We only had one VHS tape and it was 'Flight of the Navigator'. My siblings and I can quote that movie, we watched it 1000 times.
We didn’t have money for a VHS player for a *long* time. BetaMax it was!
Compliance!
I loved that movie!
That and Short Circuit
No disassemble!
And E.T.!
And Explorers!
I rode in the trunk of a car with two other friends into the drive in theater.
I used a rotary phone and remember what a busy signal sounds like.
I died from dysentery
I made time for Luke and Laura’s wedding
Bo and Hope for me!
I also suffered through Davy and Goliath and other crappy shows before cable tv.
Sunday morning TV was the worst!! Gee Daaaaveeee 🤮
I remember the +4 being added to the ZIP code on mail.
I got an empty box for Christmas with a letter from the toy company promising that my *Star Wars* figures will arrive soon.
HR PufNStuf and crew were my people. Edited for grammar.
My first computer had a monochrome monitor. It could display any colour you wanted. As long as it was green or black. (Leisure Suit Larry quote)
My school had an Apple IIe, and we weren't allowed to touch the monochrome green/black monitor because our fingerprints would "burn" into the screen!
My brownies from my EZ Bake Oven will be ready for dessert tonight.
Being alone in the house was the norm and then being responsible for getting dinner started.
There weren't school shootings. Or cops stationed at schools. Nudie mags were freely accessible and on display in some c-stores and used bookstores. Cartons of cigarettes were stocked in normal aisles of stores like any other product. Shitty beer but plentuful in 40oz and also wine coolers that came in 2 liter bottles. Pretty sure I ate lead paint chips. And weed cost 10 bucks a gram for like ever. Reading between the lines: I definitely had poor supervision.
I saw Prince Charles and Lady Di get married while working on my Invisible Woman model in the living room. With the removable baby, remember?
It was my turn for the cereal prize, so I reached to the bottom of a box of Frankenberry to retrieve it and found two! Then I poured a bowl of cereal and two more came out! We ended up with four different characters (pencil top erasers), one for each kid and one for our mom. It was such a thrill! I chose Boo Berry.
I had to circle what I wanted for Christmas in a Sears catalog. I tried to be the 5th caller into a radio station using a rotary phone. I survived many Evel Knievel stunts on my bike.
I preferred drinking from a water hose over walking inside to get a drink. I’ve got shit to do, I don’t have time for that.
I didn't know who J.R. was, or why somebody shot him, but I knew somebody shot J.R.
I actually ate Mr t cereal while watching peewee.
I pity the fool that don’t eat my cereal!
I still quote ABC Afterschool Specials.
You can do it, Duffy Moon!
8-track, vinyl, and cassette too!
I remember watching Reagan get shot. Was watching Batman, and they interrupted with a special report.
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Mr Hooper was my first loss. RIP
Gaw now I’m co
Crying
… I can’t pretend to care enough to figure out an answer.
Annnnnd we have a winner!
I once knocked myself cold and laid unconscious in our front yard for two hours. I was eight years old. This happened I when a tire swing I made broke and I smacked my head on a brick walkway. When I woke up and wandered around to the back door, I passed my drunken stepfather; he said, “Wuts the matter with you, crybaby?” When I staggered into the house where my mother was smoking a cigarette and watching a soap opera, I was told to “stop whining.”
I found random porn in the woods.
She-Ra, Jem and the Holograms, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony (OG), Poochi, and Rose Petal!
Oh, also! Reading Rainbow, Electric Company, and Fat Albert
And Rainbow Brite, Care Bears, and The Popples
I’m smoked candie cigarettes
Hong Kong Phooey was ok to watch
Now I'm going to have that song in my head ARGH
Well, he is the number one super guy.
Quicker than the human eye!
We bought Flavor-Aid because Kool-Ade was too expensive.
I learned how to program in Basic.
I kept two emergency quarters for the pay phone in my Kangaroo shoes.
I recorded my favorite songs onto a cassette tape using my big gray boombox and I got pissed when the DJ started doing a bit before the song ended.
Area codes were not dialed. Phone numbers were just 7 digits.
When we went to the video rental store we rented a vcr, too, that came in a plastic suitcase. And giggled like fiends every time a grownup went through the swinging saloon doors into the naughty movie room.
I lost a jelly shoe running through Richway to fight for a Cabbage Patch Kid
Each week I read TV guide cover to cover.
I pegged my acid wash jeans.
Mr. Rodgers taught me how to make a (sort of) healthy snack by wrapping a banana with a cheese slice for when one was hungry with no one to feed then, and this very practical knowledge was applied multiple times.
Tv went off the air at midnight.
... we got off a party line only a few years before we got HBO.
I only had to dial 4 numbers for calls inside town. Any calls out of town, even less than 15 miles, was long distance and was charged by length of the call. Then Ma Bell got broke up, and every new phone company had a commercial about their long-distance plan. Ugh.
I camped out at Tower Records for tix to the US Festival.
I knew macrame before Instagram.
I made my own custom book covers out of brown paper bags.
I sent away for Grateful Dead tickets with a decorated self-addressed stamped envelope. Also, multiple Swatches on the same wrist were a thing. It makes a lot less sense to me now than it did then.
Gary Gnu and Knock Knock are my peeps!
Our first VCR was a Betamax, and I recorded many Friday Night Videos episodes on Beta tapes.
I was the last paper boy in my neighbourhood.
I remember the New Zoo Review on in the early morning. Henrietta Hippo!
I filled out surveys for the Publisher's Clearing House and got little boxes of samples in the mail. Little girl Christmas in July
When I was nine, I hiked with three friends from our urban neighborhood to the base of a 9000 ft. mountain, the halfway up. 3 hours and 16 miles later, after getting home, parents asked where we had been. When we told them, they said it sounded like fun.
When I bought concert tickets, we had a choice... it was either Ticketmaster or Ticketron.
And we bought them in person from a counter in a department store.
I missed a day of elementary school for having Pac-Man fever 🤒
I grew up so Gen X that “sorry kid, it’s too rainy to watch the hockey game tonight” made sense
I collected Breyer horses when they were good.
I bought concert tickets at Sears
Ted Turner owned the Braves and TBS, so I got to watch all the baseball games at 7:05.
I mail ordered books by using the form that was on the last page of paperbacks.
I saw all three Star War OT movies on the big screen in the theater
I remember drinking New Coke and thinking it tasted like garbage. Then Coca Cola realized everyone hated it too so they rebranded good old fashioned regular coke as Original Recipe with that cool circle design.
I wore Toughskins.
I smoke two joints in the morning…I smoke two joint’s at night!!
I sent UPC codes via snail mail and waited weeks for my toys to arrive.
First car had gas tank behind rear license plate
I dipped my chicken McNuggets into the little rectangular containers of real honey McDonald’s used to have.
I bought 10 CDs for just a penny!
I had a Garbage Pail Kids card collection
weirdest thing for me about being GenX is I remember in the early 90’s our generation pushing back on racism and supporting LGBTQ rights etc… then all of sudden many years later its happening all over again as if somehow we backslide sometime between the late 90s and early 2000’s back to not supporting these things and now they’re issues again that need to be supported and brought to the focus. I thought we fixed these problems in the early 90’s.
I get what you're saying, but until gay marriage was legalized, I don't think they were really "fixed." We had a social revolution that wasn't really followed by a policy revolution because for whatever reasons (*cough* profit), America hasn't been allowed to make many positive legislative changes for the citizenry since the '80s or earlier.
My parents didn't notice how sick I was that I developed rheumatic fever, spent a week in PICU and now have the beginnings of CHF. Yeah, you're fine, kid shake it off.
I sported a Dorothy Hamill haircut on my first day of kindergarten. Mom dropped me off in a 1978 pinto wagon.
Our first video game was pong too but the sucky Radio Shack version
The first computer game (not Atari or arcade game) I played was loaded onto my computer from a cassette tape inside a tape player from Radio Shack. I caught that tricky Wumpus, too.
I can identify every Twilight Zone and CHiPs episode within the first minute.
I saved 3 Wheaties proofs of purchase to send in for a life sized poster of Mary Lou Retton. It was awesome.
I bought a pack of cigarettes in high school with a five dollar bill AND GOT CHANGE BACK.
My dad would rent a VCR from Blockbusters on the weekend when he had us. It was a big deal.
We sold candy bars door to door to fund our school getting A/C.
My mom regularly left me unattended in the back seat of the car while she went into the store. No one ever bothered me. I could crank the window if I got hot or bored. This was in unincorporated South Miami, when it was still called Dade County and had one area code.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Better Off Dead, The Great Outdoors…
My slam fiction was published in several zines
I had to pay long distance to call Dallas from Ft Worth.
I had to wait till after 7pm to call my girlfriend one town over.
I remember when wearing Jam shorts and Converse in TWO different colors meant you were beyond fcking cool.
I had to physically stand by the tv and hold the antenna to watch MASH on nights when it rained.
Bought encyclopedias from a door to door salesman. Read the covers off them.
I watched Diana and Charles get married and thought her big, floofy dress was soooo pretty.
I watched the first season of the original Scooby Doo
I remember when New Jersey only had two area codes: 201 and 609. Also, I’m from Jersey, so you know what my bangs looked like in my yearbook photos…
I spent a night on Witch Mountain.
There was a designated smoking section at my high school.
I always tried to shoot the dog in Duck Hunt when it would laugh at me.
I rode in the back of a truck bed and on a motorcycle without a helmet. I'm 79 so I was a child.
My first record player was mickey mouse club. My first vinyl was read along and disco duck
Fuckin’ tv dinners came in aluminum trays.
- Listened to Elvis Live in Concert on 8-track - watched Donny and Marie on the tiny TV in the kitchen while my sister watched Sonny and Cher on the big TV (we would trade off every week) - Flew on domestic and international flights that had smoking and non-smoking; got burned on the face by some guy’s cigarette when I was trying to go to the bathroom and he wasn’t paying attention, in retrospect I’m lucky he missed my eye - received K-Tel’s mix tape The Beat for Christmas and wore that thing out - first time I ever heard Depeche Mode, The Waitresses, Split Enz, etc. - Love’s Baby Soft perfume, bath salts, powder… - I had a glow in the dark Enterprise model that I built with my dad hanging in my bedroom - used to ride the bus into downtown Burlington, VT, and walk around by myself all day (Bernie Sanders was mayor at the time) - my first car was a ‘77 Pinto station wagon, stick shift. I still love to drive a stick shift and I’m looking for one for my daughter. I think everyone should know how to drive a stick! - I worked at Hardee’s, was a store manager for Contempo Casuals, and also a manager for Musicland. :)
I did school paper research using a card catalog
My first watch was a Swatch.
People were still smoking in hospital rooms. *In HOSPITAL rooms!!*
I ate Freakies cereal and had the little figures. Snorkeldorf was the best.
I cooked my own t.v. dinner