90s Facts of Life that Are No More

Sometimes you'll come across something that you know used to be just a fact of life but now seems like a remnant from another world. All of the following are 90s facts of life that are no more, officially, for better or worse.

Fuzzy toilets. (Trigger warning! People who were traumatized by Look Who's Talking may need to skip this) Remember how toilets used to be fuzzy? At some point they were all shaved, which was probably for the best, seeing as toilet rugs' only purpose was to get wet and soiled. Especially between me and my brother! Our war on toilets saw no end and many deaths! I mean, what was the point of putting the plush "carpet" on the toilet lid? Just in case you want to be comfortable while you're sitting there getting a splinter taken out or a Bandaid put on? And then how are you supposed to use the shelf in back if it's all fluffed out? At least they could've put the plush carpet on the toilet SEAT... you know, just for comfort, but no. That would've made too much sense. Present status: non-existent.

Satellite-dish chairs? (Or whatever they were called.) How about these sliding, two-piece, kiddie Venus fly traps? So inviting, but when you try to climb in, the whole thing shifts and dumps you out. But if you do succeed at scaling in, holding onto the rim without pinching your fingers as the thing shifts violently beneath your weight, you'll probably end up falling into its pillowy bowl center, never to be seen again. But, at least it was great to be able to trap siblings underneath and then go and sit on top.  And then once you were in, this thing was your throne. If you did succeed at getting into it, you're probably still there as you read this. Just stay absolutely still... it can't know you're sitting in it if you don't move! Present status: non-existent.

Fake plants a la mode! As long as they're not real. I enjoy plants. I enjoy the free oxygen. I even had a pet cactus as a kid. It died because I over-watered it. What I don't enjoy about plants? Treating them as though they were living things. I loved the rain forest as a kid, and fake plants were a way to bring the biome... home, although almost exclusively reduced to the "palm tree and fern" variety. Remember the coconut fibers or wood chips they used to be potted in? I must have stole a hundred of them from the doctor's office. Present status: everywhere dead malls can be found... or forever existing in a landfill somewhere. What's the difference anyways. I mean, "you got plants in this building... you pick them because they look good... but these are aggressive living things and they will defend themselves... violently if necessary." --Dr. Ellie Sattler, Paleobotanist

"Entertainment centers" that looked like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Knobs and blinking lights everywhere. I seriously think HAL 9000 was just a JVC VHS sitting on top of a silver stereo. Want to have some 90s kid fun? Press random buttons, and see what happens! I suppose that was the 80-90s equivalent of the Ipad. Want to watch a movie? Well, you gotta get a scientist or tech support to figure it all out, all for the tape to jam, the tracking to be off, or for it to be on the wrong channel anyways. "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." Besides, the old VCR ports didn't play cookies all that good. Present status: non-existent.


Torch floor lamps, or just... floor lamps in general. Present status: confined to therapy waiting rooms. I would know. Moving on.






Wood-paneled ceiling fans. They were literally in every house. Now they just look scary-looking. They looked like mosquitoes or giant spiders just perched up on the ceiling. They never actually cooled the room down, but they certainly confused people about just what string to pull to get the lights and/or the fan. They made nap time entertaining at my babysitter's place. Present status: quarantined to mobile homes and your aunt's house.

Right now there is a plot to cover up the very existence of indoor wicker furniture. Present status: "never existed, your memories are false! --CIA"

And John Hughes movies.

Enough said.

The Greatest Birthday Gift

Desk lamps: The birthday present
of champions!

I will not tell you when my birthday is for obvious reasons, but I have video document evidence of myself on my actual 8th birthday tossing aside clothes, games, and then virtually flying into pure elation hysterics over getting a desk lamp. This was the home movie I saw years back where I throw aside a birthday card to get to the present, only to be redirected back to the card. "You got to read the card!" "Read the card first!" 

Of course, who can forget having to be told to stop and "read the card" when you're in the middle of tearing open presents? Your eyes fixate on those words you can barely read and yet still find their way back to the new game or toy sitting on standby, waiting for you to decide when enough "card time" was enough, especially with everyone watching you "stare at it." I was all like "Are they still looking? Screw this... can I just put it down now? What's in that box?"

So once that duty was over it was on to the presents, apparently I had my heart set on a desk lamp that year for some reason because my eyes just blew open wide with amazement at this ordinary white desk lamp and I just couldn't stop talking about it. Even long after, I can be seen very visibly sneaking peaks at this desk lamp. Now if that reveals anything about me, it's that my excitement threshold for the mundane has probably always been exceedingly low.

The major thing I remember about that desk lamp was it was white all over (like the picture) and I ended up putting a green light-bulb in it so that all those late nights would be lit in a green glaze, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. This was the case until the early morning when my milk looked like orange juice (I shouldn't have to explain how eyes work). Red had always been my favorite color, but I think I blasted green into my brain so many nights that green just took over. How groovy was it that I got to spray our bedroom green every night as I crawled into that top bunk (much to my brother's chagrin down below)?

Even today if you saw the way I live, you'd say this guy is all about green. Not only is this time-waster of a site decked out in green, but I even have green sheets and towels (yes, I bought them for college). My walls are green. My desktop is green. I even like green tea. And I guess I have my 8th year of life, and one very funky birthday present, to thank for it. You know what else is green? No, not money. The Klingon Bird of Prey!

Cutting a Penny in Half

It doesn't take too long when you're a kid to learn that what they're selling this time of year isn't going to be half as good out of the box as it looks on TV. The commercial might have said the toy truck had "real world sounds!!" but to my ear, all I could ever hear was the same old white noise "SHHHHHHH" (like tuning the radio) every time I pressed its buttons. Yeah, that whole "real world sounds!" thing was a complete sham. I can give you "real world sounds" that sound better... from my ASS!

But there was a time when I was still dumb enough to believe anything I saw in a commercial, so when they had those "super scissors" infomercials back in the day with the funky-looking scissors cutting through leather, vinyl, aluminum, and even pennies like cold butter, my dad was sure to buy, even with the two easy payments of 9.99 and shipping! Apparently I wasn't the only one dumb enough.

"It so tough, it can cut a penny in half!" That was a claim worth the price of the pair in and of itself in my book. Even my dad was so impressed that he called them up, and in weeks we had our new pair of scissors in the mail. As was custom with probably everyone else who bought these "super scissors," we immediately got on that important task of actually cutting a penny in half, and damn was that one tough nut to crack!

Unlike in the commercial, which showed it cutting straight through with barely any force, it took the strength of all three of us men in the house (the 8yo-me, my 7yo-brother, and dad) to get the job done. I remember my dad, after laying them down on the table and using his full arm, made the first short incision on the side, and then my brother and I took over huffing and puffing until the thing finally gave through and the pieces shot in opposite directions across the room! So yeah, they didn't lie, per se, because it was possible, just damn hard. Wise purchase it was.

After the quest to deface currency was over, and 25 bucks was considered well spent for ten minutes, those "super scissors" promptly found their way into the kitchen drawer, and were used...as regular scissors from there on out whenever we lost the regular 2 dollar pair. The "strongest scissors in the world!!" completely sucked at cutting holiday wrapping paper! Heck, I can cut better shit... with my ASS! 

Scented Markers

Looking back, I don't know what they were thinking. They just wanted us huffing markers I guess. And did it work? You bet. Just pop the top and there was no force on earth that could stop me from getting that good frickin' SHIT into my nose holes, and they made my drawings smell like an acetone potpourri.  Ahhhhohhhh yeah....  just jam that little juicy wet marker tip right up my fricken nose hole and let me just.... let me just... *huffs* uuuughhhh-ohhhh yeeeeeah...  ...

The best ones were cherry (red), cinnamon (brown), and sour apple (dark green). Grape (purple) was also heavenly. None of them smelled anything like the real thing though, except licorice (black), which smelled like what it was. Yellow was lemon, but it was a very weak, sweet lemon, and sometimes the brown was also root beer. (At least it didn't smell like...)

Seriously the amount of recreational solvent present in a 12 pack of these things was almost too much for a kid, but they certainly helped me through the rigors of the day back then. The effects have been worth it. They were better than the real smells. Better than anything you do with your pants off, that's for sure. Cinnamon had just the right spice note with the paint thinner. Mint was like rolling in a meadow of fresh Isopropyl spuds. Watermelon and blueberry were potent juice swabs, sweet like xylene and benzene. And orange? Kind of like orange soda, but with subtle sweet hints of ether and methylene. Always a good combo. Put that in my nose! I'm addicted!

I may or may not have attempted to suck them, but they didn't taste anywhere near as good. And no, they didn't harm me none, just look at what I do with myself now.

Seriously, I need these in my nose... now!!

Dinosaur Underpants

Just about everything I touched as I crawled into bed from 1994 to 96 was Jurassic Park related: from the bed sheets to my socks, my pillow cases and pajamas, and yes, even my underwear. They had dinosaurs, big "Caution" signs, and random shapes. I remember these bedsheets well. I remember learning how to spell "caution" by reading the words on this. At first I thought it said "cussion," which is gibberish, but to a kid like me still looked pretty badass in that stencil font. I friggin' loved these sheets.

But what's the big fascination with matching outfits and bedsheets as a kid, and what's more, underwear too? Who's cares about that? Don't those "DANGER!" signs take on a whole new meaning when you're wearing them down below? And I shouldn't have to tell you where the "Keep Out!" was. (I really hope I'm just joking about this, I don't remember that much detail.)

It's because they're the "underwear that's fun to wear." They're what you wear when you're seven years old and don't give a damn about dignity, you just want to be covered, head to toe, in Raptors and T-Rexes as you snuggle up between sheets of Raptors and T-Rexes. I had no idea that the bedsheets, pajamas, and underwear I had as a kid would eventually be termed "vintage" on Ebay, but now it makes me feel like the dinosaur.

"Naturally you might have dinosaurs on your...on your dinosaur bedspread?" 

Snowmobile and Sister

Actual photo.

February in my 8th year of life was consumed by two things: snowmobiling around my great uncle's farm field, and the birth of my sister. When I came back to school from that monumental February break, my teacher asked me, "Something big happened over the break for you, I heard. Tell us about it," and my response was, you guessed it, "Yes! I went snowmobiling!"

Now I know what you're thinking, "typical guy!" But in my defense, it was a Yamaha Phazer II. I mean come on.

Me... on snowmobiles.

Okay, don't get me wrong, my sister's birth loomed over my life from then on out, and I was the best big brother in the world to her, but up to that week, I was still just a kid living my normal life and enjoying it. Ripping up the snow across the field with dad was exactly my idea of fun back then.

Actually I seem to remember another trip to some snowy place for snowmobile fun waaay back before I had brains enough to compute where I even was. All I do remember is... "hell yeah!"

But uh... seriously, I don't even remember my mom's pregnancy. It all seemed to just happen one day. One day I was a kid sitting in front of my dad on a snowmobile, flying off the hills, riding over the bumps in the thick snow, hearing the howl of the engine in the frosty wind, watching the snow explode on impact... and the next, I was laying in the hospital bed next to mom with a baby sister between us. She was born on 2/19/94, and I met her first in hospital room 219 (coincidentally). I got to be the cool kid that month, regaling all the boys of the adventure with the snowmobile, and at home I got to be something else.

I Was Raised on the Flowbee

The other day I carried on a tradition with myself that goes back many years... (not what you're thinking...). Anyways! I stood before a mirror with a pair of regular scissors and trimmed my own hair. I do this because nothing about going to the barbers is all that exciting to me and never has (except perhaps pondering the mystery of what the blue liquid "comb soup" is). Hairdressers just don't appeal to the average male population. We're just uncomfortable sitting in those waiting rooms surrounded by 12 different types of conditioner, glossy wall pictures of bouncy-haired fems, and old copies of InStyle on the end tables.

Now I'm not saying we need football on a 50 inch plasma TV sitting in front of us to be comfortable (not all of us at least), but could we at least get a copy of Newsweek in there? Come on, throw the dogs a bone! And it's not even the magazines, it's the fact that, despite having to go in to get one done every two months or so, whenever you walk into a barber shop as a guy, you suddenly get the confirmed suspicion that you're the last man on earth, or at least, that you've stepped into No Man's Land itself. There's always four or five fems in front of you, all doing the advanced shampoos, curling irons, dyes, styling, and the whole nine yards, and they're always quite close knit, and chatty. The stylists see you and you know they're thinking, "ah, break time"...they could do you in their sleep. You feel embarrassed just to ask for a trim.

Anyways, because of all this and more, I've resorted to cutting my own hair most of the time, and I'm not that bad at it (just don't ask me to cut yours). But there have been times in my life where I've gone just too darn long between haircuts, and these dry spouts have been more or less continuing since I was a kid. It's not my fault. See, I was raised on the Flowbee, so more often then not, my hair was cut at home anyway by my penny-pinching dad who had a knack for doing me and my brother like Moe Howard for a good part of my early existence. (For those of you who don't know what the Flowbee was, what you don't know can't hurt you.)

Introducing the Flowbee! Its hypnotic rhythmic pulse and endless pounding on your cranium is sure to make you barf all over your bathroom and cause a concussion! (True story, it actually did make me barf all over the bathroom once).

My first trip to the barber was when I was three (this was the late eighties), and it was such a momentous event that they preserved a few husks and gave me some kind of certificate for it. But by the time I was nine, after I'd thrown up a hundred times to the lull of that hypnotic Flowbee buzz, I'd gotten to the point where if the barber asked me how I wanted my hair. I'd reply, "shorter," to which they'd rejoin, "that's good, because it'd be hard for me to make it longer." That's about when the problem started. In that span of time, getting it cut had lost its momentousness for sure. 

Being a kid who was raised on a hair-sucking vacuum, I kind of got used to the idea of doing it in the comfort of my own home though, in the bathroom, propped on a footstool. If my bangs were getting all up in my face, I'd grab a pair of scissors and hack off a lock or two, or three. If it meant walking around with a chunk missing off the front of my head, well, so be it. My Flowbee dad certainly wasn't very thrilled, and had to spend a good half hour trying to even it out. He gave me a good tongue lashing for that. 

Now, I seem to just let it grow real shaggy and then slice it off in one heave. I've also taught myself a thing or two about shaping and trimming hair (as opposed to just chopping it off). It's not perfect, but walking around with this rug is better than having to sit there at the salon playing with those Duplo blocks on the floor because I, as a male, lack the sensibility to fall into the pages of Women's Health magazine and the patience to just, I don't know, sit there and act my age. And besides, those four year olds won't share anyways.