2015-01-05

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?

29 comments:

  1. This was da bomb, home skillet.

    You know, my wife still has a pager for her job. Which shows you just how outdated her department is. Which is funny, since it's the I.T. department. Let that sink in.

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    1. Glad you dug it, Homey.
      Does your wife work for a Fax Repair company??
      That's hilarious. Though I have heard of people still using pagers, besides doctors. They're cheaper, and companies claim they're reliable because they still work when phone lines and mobile cell towers are down or have bad reception. I would MUCH rather have a pager, I hate talking on any phone, especially a mobile phone.

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    1. For some reason the slang of the 90's doesn't stand out with me, not the way it does with 80's or before. I feel 80's was the last GOOD decade!

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  3. *grins* this is AWESOME. I remember most of the clothes, but, like, from younger. I think I even had a lumberjack jacket or so, and DOZE BOOTS!

    I never heard of the pager codes though! Wow! And I love your descriptions "Goldenrod and some fancy blue..."

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    1. I loved those boots and never wanted to let them go! As a height-challenged person I STILL like a heel. I can't reach stuff!
      They had very specific names. I really think the blue was "Bimini Blue" but my memory is turrible.

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  4. I'm absolutely horrid at remembering song and band names, but remember that song that started, "All I can say is that my life is pretty lame..." That came on in Trader Joe's, and I found I knew every word. And I sang along so everyone in the store could appreciate it.

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    1. OH I actually KNOW that one! I am terrible about that stuff, too! The only reason I know that is "Blind Melon" is we have Rock Band and it's a song you can choose. The band name appears while the song plays. One person can sing, there are 2 guitars and little plastic drums you can play along, it's super fun! I'm tone deaf, but this is more like a video game so I can actually DO it.

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  5. Cell phones that were as big as a book. That replaced the pager, but you had to cycle through the numbers to get to the letters to text. Way too much effort.

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    1. OMG Pattie, how the hell did I forget CELL PHONES at the end of the 90's??? I guess because I didn't have one in the 90's it just didn't register with me. I did work with some people that had those GIANT PHONES in the bag! Those were awesome! And weighed as much as a baby. I should have included a picture!

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  6. I loved everything about this post. I was a teen in the 90s... A few years ago looking back on the floral print leggings and matching tops I wore made me cringe... now it's all back in the stores. Now if we could just get the music to get back on trend... I wouldn't mind a real deal Spice Girl reunion.

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    1. There ARE some ugly leggings out there now! I'm sure they're comfortable. Or something.

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  7. Plaid. Flannel. Boots. Jeans. Lesbians, yeah baby yeah.

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    1. Still love all that jazz. And stripes. I'll always love stripes, especially gray and black.

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  8. Ooooh, ooooh. The big hair. In the early 90s, one of my friends *insisted* she was taller than me. I didn't think so. I finally had someone measure us back to back and I was taller, but her bangs were taller so it appeared from the front that she was taller. LOL 20 years later, I still don't let her forget that. LOL

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    1. HAhahaha In the 80's I had HUGE bangs, probably the 90's too. Hell, I still love bangs. I'm just too lazy to make them stick up anymore!

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  9. I'm sorry the 90's were rough for you Joy.
    Yes you absolutely got off to a great start with the title! If ever a show epitomized the youth of the 90's it was
    Friends. I know it was popular with the 20 something crowd but I loved it! And Seinfeld. Another favorite. I loved how Elaine dressed. Those shoes up there? I was sporting a pair of those way before Elaine was (only mine were hush puppies:) )
    Now that you know about clarks, scotts and rogers, Joy, you now know that some of those girls weren't lesbians....they were clarklike females! lol
    Thanks for the throwback! It was great!

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    1. Thank you, my friend. Glad it's behind me.
      I had a couple pairs of those "spat" shoes, big fan.
      True, true. And I love the androgyny, in any decade.
      I'm glad you enjoyed it!

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  10. well… other than having the time to go the kitchen to get a cup of coffee while the computer drew the porn on the screen (one 1034 line at a time!), I don't remember that much about the nineties… oh, yeah and that 'eeeeee' noise coming out of the computer as the modem connected?

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    1. HAhahahahahahaha, it was probably faster to physically draw stick figure porn! I forgot ALL ABOUT the dang MODEM noises until you brought it up! That's right, that was SO LOUD all the time in the office. How could I forget that?!

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  11. Men's jeans, plaid shirts, grunge, that piece of jewellery suspended around the neck with said leather string and a half shaved head. I thought I rocked it, but now realize that people thought that I was gay...or a man. That would explain why some of the kids at the school where I taught, kept calling me sir...that, plus the beard.

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    1. Ha! I had a beard for awhile, but here I mean the male person that you brought to important events so you weren't the object of all the office gossip. I'll bet that all looked phenomenal on you!

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  12. The 90s for me was the time of mounting responsibilities - kids & mortgages. The 70s was my decade.

    And, by the way, those white socks were hideous!

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    1. Yes, that was the decade I had my son and first (horrendously bad) marriage.
      They were but I gave zero f*cks, super comfortable!

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  13. I wasn't really into fashion in the 90's... although I am pretty sure the grunge fad was inspired by the clothes I already wore at the time! But I definitely remember pagers. And part of that time I had a pager, but no phone, and multiple other people I knew had pagers but no phones. So you would have to find a payphone that would allow a call back (you could do this by inserting your money and dialing the number of the phone you were at. If you got a busy signal, the phone could get call backs. If you got a recording, it COULDN'T get callbacks, AND you lost your money!) Then you'd have to page the person and wait around for them to call you there. But sometimes, instead, they would page YOU back from a payphone somewhere else! And sometimes we would give eachother a code... like if you see a phone number, followed by the number 77, it is me! And I also remember when you could get voicemail through a pager... I felt like such a grow-up with my own voicemail!

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    1. WOW, I did not know that about the pay phones! Interesting. Not that there are any payphones around anywhere anymore, I haven't seen one for decades. I did love the voicemail, but when I was out and about I was always to lazy to find a payphone, get change and call to listen to it. We had codes like 211 for "kind of an emergency" and 10 for "I'm home" and stuff like that. I also had a trick with my parents, more in the 80's though, where if I was out and needed a ride I would call them collect. They would tell the operator "No" meaning they did not want to accept the charge for the call, then hang up and know it was time to come pick me up. Usually from the library. Which wasn't far from our house, but they said they didn't want me walking home after dark.

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  14. OMG, this is such a great post! I don't give much thought to the 90's either. I still love sweater vests and overalls yet neither are in fashion. I love Elaine's style!! I had a pixie hair cut kind of like Demi Moore's from Ghost. I had my first baby in 92 and then my second in 94 so it's kind of a blur!

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it. The styles of that time never stood out until this year watching Friends and thinking back on it. I wonder what will be iconic from this time. Ugg boots? Yoga pants? No, those are timeless!
      I'm with you on the 90's, my first was born in '95. Everything feels like a movie montage since then.

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  15. Oh my God. Too effin funny. I cracked up all the way through this. "I may have been a lesbian for awhile... Hella tight, to put in 90's slang." That was awesome. This post was spot on. Love the part about your co-worker dressing as you for Halloween. You should dig out some of those top 10 lists!

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