Crap I Bet You Forgot Even Existed

One thing I have been thinking about doing is writing better, and approaching some serious topics. Yes I do think about stuff like that, usually while looking for perverted hashtags on Instagram. The latest greatest I found is #BananaHammock check it out. I spent a month there.

With the title of this post, I'd say I'm off to a great start. While I was out of town over the holidays, I did some research, and by that I mean watched Netflix on my tablet. Which is NEW this year, so 'New Year/New Me?' 

I asked for a tablet because I grew tired of people trying to call and text me on my TV. Annoying. 

So yeah, probably 2015: Same Old Me. Oh well if NEW Coke, and then the immediate release of Classic Coke, has taught us anything it's don't broke what isn't broken. Or something.

Netflix just started streaming the sitcom "FRIENDS" and it's giving me a major 90's boner. I want to fax something.

Chandler had a BETTER phone with a metal antenna.
Remember breaking those?

I never thought about trends from the 90's. To me it's not like the 80's, which brings immediate images of neon colors and plastic Madonna bracelets. While watching a few episodes, I started having some flashbacks to crap I completely forgot even existed. Like T-shirts under dresses. 

My oldest sister was Queen of a white T or tank under a sundress. The bomb.
She also rocked one little charm on a piece of leather as a choker.

Remember denim overalls as fashion? If you're a farmer you probably still rock those bad boys, but it was urban fashion in the 80's and then we acid-washed them and rolled up one leg for the 90's. This picture of your mom (that's when that started) is probably not accurate.

I don't about these heels. wheretogetit.com

I say 'we,' but you never could pay me to wear overalls. They didn't design them for women with giant breasts, just like they don't really design any real clothing that isn't lingerie my for people born this way. I did rock some sweater vests, though. Wool, crushed velvet, I even wore a denim vest. I think I wore that at least 3 times. For whatever reason. 

In my defense, we didn't take selfies, so you either had to catch a printed out picture of yourself (or digital pic toward the end of the 90's) before you realized what an idiot you looked like. Unless you had someone close enough to you to tell you the truth. I luckily had older sisters who were constantly asking if I just came from greasing the car. (I had greasy hair, apparently.)

However once I needed to make that cheddar, I joined the world of florescent lighting office jobs. Good timing, too. In the 90's, business casual took off so I built my wardrobe around vests, 'dressy' T-shirts and long skirts. With chunky boots. Minimal use of high heels, that was dope.

This was me eeeryday in the 90's. creativefashionglee.com

I also took advantage of the Elaine from Seinfeld white socks with shoes, because that is super comfortable. Let's bring that back, but in a few years when I have to get a real job again.

Laugh away, it's totally comfortable.  tulsa20something.com
Especially when you're white-girl dancing like Elaine. Guilty.

This is what I wore every day in the 90's (and beyond,) add a blazer some days, and usually higher, chunkier boots. Whatever you're picturing, chunkier.

For once in my life, I could reach stuff on shelves.
I could kick some ASS. If I didn't fall over. polyvore.com

Those above were for dress-up and these below were for after work. I may have been a lesbian for awhile. It was pretty borderline amazing. Hella tight, to put in 90's slang.

Some older guy walked across a bar to stare at these on my feet one time
when I was playing pool. I was wearing men's jeans, I also remember.

I also rocked more plaid than a lumberjack, but I maintain this is not a 90's trend. Plaid and flannel is timeless. Classic. 

This was a co-worker dressed as me for Halloween. Notice: Plaid.
I dressed as her, she me. We won a contest and a gift card and took a 2 hr lunch.
Man, I miss working, and getting a LUNCH BREAK.

Like grunge music. I will never forget Pearl Jam and Nirvana. They got me listening to music again. Before that, I turned to talk radio and audiobooks on cassette to escape pop music. 

The 90's were a great time technologically. Color became common on our computer monitors, floppy disks got smaller, we had e-mail and we didn't even hate it! 

This sums it up perfectly. We were happier to get email than snail mail.
This was before spam and stupid corny joke forwards.
harvestretailmarketing.com

This was the first .gif I ever saw, my entire office of investment bankers marveled over it. Wicked.

Technology got more interesting, and more colorful.

I not only had a pager but I worked for Page-Net, THEE pager people. 

I worked with retailers and resellers of pagers, so you can guess how classy most of our clients were. 

I'm not saying they weren't on the up and up, but I don't know many legit business people who would try to slip a customer service rep a c-note for a favor or a 'good number.' I even got one for Christmas, too, from the mob group! I mean, uh, allegedly. Just kidding LOLOLOLJKLOLOLOL KIDDING. I'm totally kidding. That so didn't happen ever. 

Do not place a hit on me, Tony, I'm a standup guy.

They would call us, or sometimes come IN to the office to explain how we just had to "cut their beepers back on" because their customers were threatening their lives. I thrived in this atmosphere as you may imagine. 

You could MIX the color of the carrier clip!
It was all that and a bag of chips.
myallpage.com

We got to pick and have a pager as a job perk. They offered 2 different styles, and I think 4-5 colors to chose from. Not these colors pictured, we had like Goldenrod, some fancy blue, I believe it was called BIMINI blue (shown in the picture) red and maybe purple. We didn't have many, back in the day.

If you're familiar with pagers you know they only send numbers, so we had to come up with codes to send each other messages if we didn't have or didn't want to call voice mail for an actual message. 

Like when your brother spells "BOOBIES" on a calculator. There were tons of codes, everyone had their own but some were universal, like "143" meant I Love You because of the number of letters in each word. Pager Leet (1337) Speak.

This was about the only time I had to use numbers in real life, Mrs. Mogy.
Happy to report I never received a '187.' latimes.com

 Yes, that was a lot of freaking work so Motorola quickly gave us, and we got to try out, the ALPHA-NUMERIC pager that could send....get ready for this....TEXT messages! I know, it was legend....wait for it....dairy. I felt like a doctor.

This was also prime time for "Top 10" lists so I would
write and send those to co-workers almost daily. order.pageplus.az.com

I'm sure there are many more things that I completely forgot even existed, but that's all I can think of right now. The 90's were a tough time for me personally, so my memory is sketchy at best, partially from trying every single available anti-depressant, anti-anxiety and prescription sleeping pill on the market at that time. And partially from sheer will of trying to block it out. 

What reminds you of the 90's? 

Even if you weren't alive, is there a band or something like those electronic flying toasters that just screams "90's" in your mind?