To all you 20 somethings born in the late 60's or early 70's. You might
be a child of the 80's if...
You have deep, personal relationships via computers with people you've
never met in real life before.
The phrase "going courting", to you, means fighting an unjust traffic
ticket or playing tennis.
You know, by heart, the words to any "Weird" Al Yankovic song.
Not that you'd do it personally, but body piercing captivates your
attention.
You remember the days when cocaine was just fine in powder form,
thankyouverymuch.
You think the "the Gay 90's" refers to this decade, and people's
sexual orientation.
The Brady Bunch movie brought back cool memories.
You remember the first time "Space: Above and Beyond" aired - it was
called "Battlestar Galactica."
Songs by Debbie Gibson still haunt you to this day.
Three words: Atari, IntelliVision, Coleco. Sound familiar?
You remember the days that hooking your computer into your television
wasn't an expensive option that required gadgets - it was the ONLY WAY
to use your computer!
You remember the days when "safe sex" meant "my parents are gone for
the weekend. Yahoo!"
You remember "Friday Night Videos" before the days of MTV.
You ever owned a pair of "Pop-Wheels" - that handy little combination
of shoe and roller skate that lasted about a year on the open market.
A predominant color in your childhood photos is "plaid."
You're pissed that you were too young to participate in the freedom
marches and drugged up protests in the 60's, pissed that you were too
young to participate in the free love and drugs thing in the 70's,
pissed that you were too young to capitalize on the greed and money
making ambiance of the 80's, pissed that you wasted too much time doing
stupid meaningless things in the late 80's, and still have no clue what
the 90's are all about.
You see teenagers today wearing clothes that show up in those
childhood photos, and they still look bad.
While in high school, you and all your friends discussed elaborate
plans to get together again at the end of the century and play "1999" by
Prince over and over again.
You remember when music that was labeled "alternative" really was.
One of the top five questions you've always wanted answered was to
Robert Smith of the Cure - "What WAS that head on the door thing anyway?"
You were shocked and horrified at the Challenger explosion (which you
were probably watching in school at the time), and yet, when someone
mentions the name "JFK", the first thing you think of is "Oliver Stone."
You, yes you, sat down and memorized the entire lyric sheet to "It's
the End of the World as We Know It" by REM.
You can't remember when the word "networking" didn't have a computer
connotation to it as well.
You took family trips BEFORE the invention of the mini-van. You rode
in the back of the station wagon and you faced the cars behind you.
You knew all the words to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire", but
it really didn't hold any meaning for you until about the third verse.
You've ever conversationally used the phrase "Jane, you ignorant slut."
You watched HR Puffenstuff as a child, but now that you're older, you
really understand that it would have been much better had you known
about drugs at the time.
You've recently horrified yourself by using any one of the following
phases:
- "When I was younger..."
- "When I was your age..."
- "You know, back when..."
- "Because I SAID so, that's why."
- "What the HELL is this noise on the radio?"
- "Just can't (fill in the blank) like I used to."
You can't remember a time when "going out for coffee" DIDN'T involve
49,000 selections to choose from.
Schoolhouse Rock played a HUGE part in how you actually learned the
English language.
Kids that work in restaurants and supermarkets are starting to piss
you off by calling you "sir" or "ma'am."
You're starting to view getting carded to buy alcohol as a GOOD thing,
and you're ready to marry the next person who cards you when you want to
buy cigarettes.
Flashback: it was your first chance to vote in a presidential
election, and you were SO disappointed because, just for laughs, you
really wanted to vote for Gary Hart.
The first time you heard the candidates names, you were pumped because
you thought MICHAEL Jackson was running for President, not this Jesse
character.
You ever dressed to emulate a person you saw in a Duran Duran,
Madonna, or Cyndi Lauper video.
At one point during your teenage years, you walked with a noticeable
tilt to one side due to the number of plastic rings on that arm.
"Celebration" by Kool & the Gang was one of the hot new songs when you
first heard it at a school dance.
The first time you ever kissed someone at a dance fell during "Crazy
for You" by Madonna.
There were at least three people in your school that voluntarily went
by the names of "Skip," "Buffy," "Muffy," or "Dexter."
You ever owned one of those embarrassing crimping irons.
You used to hold in your head the thought that all those gold chains
on Mr. T actually looked kinda cool and the thought that Mr. T made
millions seemed rational to you at the time.
You remember with pain the sad day when the Green Machine hit the
streets and made your old big wheel quite obsolete.
The phrase "Where's the beef?" still doubles you over with laughter.
You read the "Hot Video Games Player's Secrets" guide for Mortal
Kombat just so you could find the hidden screen, and play Pong again for
old time's sake.
Honestly remember when film critics raved that no movie could ever
possibly get better special effects than those in the movie TRON.
You ever had nightmares about the giant red evil robot Maximillian
from the Disney movie "The Black Hole" and those blender attachments he
had for hands.
You were convinced for years that Batman was a mildly overweight man
with a moderate beer belly who wore his underwear outside of his clothes
and talked strangely.
(guys) Your first wet dream occurred to thoughts of Jeannie, Marsha
Brady, Samantha from Bewitched or, for those hardcore comic fans out
there, Daphne from Scooby Doo, Josie or any one of her Pussycats.
(girls) You thought Sean Cassidy was "dreamy", lusted after "Ted, your
ship's photographer" on the Love Boat and Chachi, or, to keep it fair to
the comically interested, thought Fred was just a hunk on Scooby Doo.
You're still occasionally suffering flashbacks from your 21st birthday
party.
You're starting to dread your 30th birthday, and have even begun going
into denial about its possibility.
You've ever said "I'm a vegetarian" and immediately had someone call
you a hypocrite by saying "Nice leather jacket you have there...and gee,
is that a suede bag... those shoes leather, too?"
You freaked out when you found that you now fall into the "26 - 34"
age category on most questionnaires.
You have begun to lust after people who it would be socially
inappropriate for you to date due to their age
Your hair, at some point in time in the 80's, became something which
can only be described by the phrase "I was experimenting."
This timeline appropriately describes actual events in your life: Star
Wars opens, you are still in single digit ages, and you think the
creatures are WAY cool. Empire Strikes Back opens, you are now in early
double digit ages, and you are convinced that the special effects are
much better, the characters are cool, and you want one of every
collectible out there. Return of the Jedi hits the theaters... you are
now a teenager, and you cannot get your eyes off Princess Leia's breasts
or Han Solo's butt. You fantasize forever and ever about it, and send
off to join every fan club for them on the planet, hanging posters,
photos, and "teen"-type magazine spreads all over your walls and lockers
at school.
You remember when the phrase "candy is dandy, but sex won't rot your
teeth" started getting followed by "yeah, but M&M's won't give you AIDS..."
You've ever shopped at a Banana Republic or Benetton, but not in the
last five years, okay?
You can't remember a time when "hitting the outlet stores" didn't mean
going to an electrical warehouse.
You're starting to believe (now that it wouldn't affect YOU) that
maybe having the kids go to school year-round wouldn't be such a bad
idea after all.
You're doing absolutely nothing with anything pertaining to your major
degree.
You won't walk into the place where you once knew every bartender on a
first name basis because "there's too many kids there."
Going to keg parties no longer involves hiding out in the woods when
the cops show up.
You want to go out dancing, you really, REALLY do, but your back hurts.
You're starting to think that luxury or sports cars really look good,
and aren't REALLY for guys going through a mid-life crisis and worried
about their penis. That's not YOU.
You're starting to get that "why aren't you married yet" shpiel, not
just from parents, but now from friends that are married.
You've recently horrified yourself by groaning as you get out of bed,
not because of a hangover, but because it genuinely just hurt to do so.
You're finding that you just don't understand more than half the lingo
used on MTV any more.
(mostly guys on this one) Sex is still as much fun as it used to be,
and you're still really interested in it, but you just want to make sure
there's nothing really good on cable that you'd be missing first.
You ever wanted to be gagged with a spoon.
U2 is too "popular" and "mainstream" for you now.
You ever used the phrase "kiss mah grits" in conversation.
When somone mentions two consecutive days of the week, the Happy Days
theme is stuck in your head for hours on end.
You remember trying to guess the episode of the Brady Bunch from the
first scene.
You ever used the phrase "don't make me angry... you wouldn't LIKE me
when I'm angry" when trying to frighten someone off.
You spent endless nights dreaming about being the Bionic Woman or
Wonder Woman or the Six Million Dollar Man.
You had ringside seats for Luke and Laura's wedding (on General
Hospital).
You remember "Hey, let's be careful out there."
Your parents wanted you to attend medical school, but you decided it was
pointless since Quincy got all the babes, anyway.
You know who shot J.R.
This rings a bell: "and my name, is Charlie. They work for me."
You actually remember what all the subplots on Twin Peaks were.
You long for the days when Metallica actually played heavy metal, not
this Top 40 spunk.
Ronald Reagan was like the kindly, forgetful grandfather you never
had, and Gorbachev was the guy who helped Moscow get a McDonald's.
People use the words "slacker" and "slack" around you a whole lot.
You know that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings, George
Harrison was in a band before Traveling Wilburys, and Ringo Starr was in
a band before senility.
The thought of Tiffany wandering from Mall to Mall singing "children
behave..." makes you smile.
You followed John Travolta from sweathog to Grease monkey to Fever
spreader to Urban Cowboy to Perfect journalist to Talking cab driver to
Pulp Fiction junkie to Phenomenon pseudoscientologist.
You compare Kurt Cobain's death with those of Jimi Hendrix, Janis
Joplin, and Jim Morrison.
You remember that punk music was invented 15 years before the likes of
Green Day and the Offspring.
You recall when the only kind of pants you could buy were bell
bottoms, and you wore them despite how they looked, not because you were
feeling "retro."
You've spent considerable time saran wrapping your comic books or
baseball cards in the hopes of selling them years from now and retiring.
You believe that Blondie did a great service to the whole rap genre.
You fondly recall the shorts that insired the term "Daisy Dukes".
The thing that got you interested in basketball was Bird versus
Magic, baby.
You remember how lame "Cheers" was during its first season.
You first met Alanis Morissette as a 10-year-old getting slimed on
Nickelodeon's "You Can't Do That On Television."
In every Pearl Jam tune, you can name the 70s FM radio song the main
guitar riff has been stolen from.
You've ever drank grape Kool-Aid out of a Snoopy thermos to wash down
a handful of Little Debbie cakes and/or cheese-and-cracker snacks.
You think of divorce not only as a state of mind, but also a state of
being.