For those of us who grew up in the 1980’s, it was indeed a magical time. Saturday morning cartoons were the thing, not 24 hours of cartoons on dozens of channels all the livelong day, like it is now. Saturday mornings were something to be treasured and something to look forward to. Just you, a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, and Bugs Bunny.
But I digress…
There are several things about that totally tubular decade that I am glad are not things we have to deal with anymore. Such as:
The kitchen telephone. Yes, the home telephone still exists, but the 80’s version was quite a pain treasure. See, it hung on the wall and had this ab-nor-mal-ly long cord, that no matter what one did, it coiled and became this thing that hung from the receiver. Everyone would try and untangle it, but the minute the next person used the telephone, bam, the gosh darn thing would become a mangled mess again. Not a fan of those phone cords, not a fan. Speaking of which…
Rotary phones. Good luck dialing a phone number with an area code, and God forbid you mess up a number and have to start. All. Over. Again. Gah! “Did I dial 787 or 987?” “Did I dial a 1 before the area code?” You wanna know why there were so many wrong numbers dialed in the 80’s? Rotary phones, yo…
Random windowless vans. Yes, these vans still exist (unfortunately). But if you were a kid growing up in the 80’s, you were hit over the head with the fact that “strangers” drove “windowless vans” to “kidnap” you and they would try and entice you with “candy”, in order to get you to get into the “windowless van”. To. This. Day. I cannot park next to a windowless van and IΒ freak out and will deliberately park somewhere else just so I don’t have to park next to the probably harmless person driving their cargo van.
Aqua Net. Good grief, I think all of us kids in the 80’s took out a good chunk of the ozone layer with all of our hairspray. How did we not pass out from all the fumes? And who said having bangs 3 feet high, was a good idea? Cause it’s not…
Cassette Singles. Yes, youngins, we listened to cassette singles. And you know what was annoying? The second side of the cassette. See the first side had the song you wanted, the whole reason you bought the single in the first place. But the second side, when you flipped that puppy over, was an instrumental recording of the song that you just bought. Really? Who wants to listen to a song without the words? I mean are we supposed to be putting on our own karaoke show in our rooms? WTF? Or, if your second side didn’t carry the instrumental version, it carried an “unreleased” track from the artists’ album, which was so bad, you seriously questioned even buying the whole album if this is what the rest of their music sounded like.
Ah, the 1980’s…what don’t you miss? π I wanna hear about it!
Bahahaha the phone things is so true. It would be in massive nots. Oh, and BTW I totally won a radio giveaway for being caller number 100 or somethingβ¦on a rotary phone! π My parents had one in their bedroom. I would say two additional sucky things about the 80s’s were shoulder pads and perms.
OMG, those phone cords were sooooo annoying! Always twisting! Ok, that’s pretty awesome that you won a giveaway by using a rotary phone! That is an awesome skill, my friend π
Shoulder pads!!! Argh.. Those were just awful! Because looking like a linebacker is attractive. Sigh… π
My Mum and Dad used to have a rotary dial phone in their family room and my kids picked it up to use it and didn’t know how to dial the number. We laughed!
Lol, yeah kids today don’t know how good they have it! π
I didn’t grow up in the 80’s really (I was born in them, but I say I’m a child of the 90’s). We never had corded phones, but a few of the cottages I hung out at in the summer had party lines… who knew they still made those past the 60’s or so? π
Re: Tonya’s comment about perms. I would LOVE a perm. Not 80’s style perm, but a loose wave perm that would give my hair a style (I call it wavy, but it’s really just somewhere in between straight and slightly not straight). Sadly my hair is too thick. I’ve asked multiple hair stylists and they all tell me “Hell no!”. I am sure I will appreciate their forceful no’s, but man I want a perm π
Lucky that you didn’t have to deal with those phones, they were super annoying π
Hmmm, and the hair stylists say no to the perm? Maybe they are having flashbacks to the 80’s perms and that’s why they are saying no π
Saturday morning cartoons were an EVENT! From 7 – 10 AM, every Saturday, I sat in front of the TV. I didn’t mind Bugs, but I hated Tom and Jerry. I mean, really. The mouse is going to be smarter than the cat? No way! π My parents had a rotary phone in our basement for years and I remember struggling to make a call on it after being spoiled with, you know, a normal phone. My biggest pet peeve with cassette tapes was how they always got tangled up and ruined, although I did love my walkman! I remember listening to the American Top 40 with Kasey Kasem (RIP!) and trying to record my favorite songs. I actually miss the 80’s perms (but not the aqua net) to a degree because my hair is so stick straight and has no volume. But I wouldn’t want one of those super tight spiral perms, but more like the wavy perm Alicia wants.
I loooooved Bugs Bunny, like, I couldn’t wait for Saturday mornings!! π Tom and Jerry bugged me too, but it bugged me because Tom was so dumb. I mean, really?
Yes, cassette tapes did always get tangled and the tape player would always eat them. You’d hit “eject” and it would be a garbled mess. π I had a Walkman too, yes those were the days…
LOL, I miss SO much about the 80’s: especially the clothes, the hair and the music. π And I remember vividly rollerblading with my Walkman around the local lake. Ahh, good times. π
The music of the 80’s was the best! Hair bands rule! And acid-washed ripped jeans π
Ha! Love this!! Rotary phones were the worst! Especially if you had a phone number with the number 9 in it. It took forever to dial! I also hated cassette singles because all you would do is play and rewind, so time consuming, yet I still purchased them. I don’t miss not having call waiting. I missed so many calls from potential boyfriends because my brother was on the phone. I hated it.
Lol, the number 9 was the worst and when I was kid, everyone I knew had that digit in their phone number! Ugh…
Cassette singles were highly annoying. Whoever invented CD’s, that is a very wonderful person indeed π
LOL to all of these, especially cassette singles!! I felt the same way, like why can’t you just put two good songs because the second side was never heard?? Though I admit, when they invented the auto-turn to the B side, I thought that was the best technology ever!! It might have been the cusp into the 90’s, but I also don’t miss Sun-In – that’s a great way to turn your hair orange! :p
Yes, cassette singles, lol how did we ever survive? π Cd’s: best invention ever!!
OMG, Sun-In…I totally forgot about that! Yes, it totally turned your hair orange!! Do they even still make that? Ha!! π
[…] I wrote a post about things I don’t miss about the 80’s previously, and I thought now would be a good time to add another one, cause they are fun, and […]