You Might Be a Child of the 80's If
This applies to people who were in
high school or college in the 80s
- 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 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"
and "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"
- 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 couldn't really participate
in the 60's, pissed that you were a part of the 70's, think you
wasted too much time doing stupid, meaningless things in the 80's,
and still have no clue what the 90's were 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"
- 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've ever dressed to emulate a person
you saw in either 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 it's 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're starting to believe that maybe 30
isn't so old after all, and it's those people over 40 you have
to look out for
- You freaked out when you found that you
now fall into the "26-50" age category on most questionnaires
- You have begun to lust after women (or men)
that 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 co nvinced 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, sorry
- You're starting to think that Corvettes
really look good, and aren't REALLY for guy's 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"
- You're 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."