I Was Born In 1984

..the very last day of '84, to be exact. But ya'll knew that. Child of the 90's, I am, and you probably are too. Here's the main section of a bulletin currently being passed around ("You know you're a Child of the 90s if..") as well as some of my own thoughts:

You can finish: "ice ice _ _ _ _ "

You remember watching:
-Doug
-Ren & Stimpy
-Pinky and the Brain
-AAAAAAAH Real Monsters!
-Rocko's modern Life.
(And the Angry Beavers!)

You've ever ended a sentence with the word "PSYCHE!"

You just cant resist finishing this . . . "In west Philidelphia born and raised . . ."

You remember:
-TGIF
-Step by Step
-Family Matters
-Dinosaurs
-Boy Meets World.

You remember when it was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons. (When you had to get up in the MORNING to see any cartoons, after 9:30 or so it was too late.)

You got super excited when it was Oregon Trail day in computer class at school.

You remember reading "Goosebumps"

You took plastic cartoon lunch boxes to school.
(Bonus points if you had the kind McD's used to give out, with the raised pictures on the outside. I kept crayons in mine.)

You still get the urge to say "NOT" after (almost) every sentence . . . not

When everything was settled by:
-rock paper scissors or
-bubble gum bubble gum in a dish or
-daddy had a donkey inky binky bonky.

When cops and robbers was a daily activity.

(When girls were cool if the knew the "special" way to clap to Miss Mary Mack)

When we played Hide and go seek at moodys, until our legs grew numb.
(I don't know Moodys, but I remember tree-tag.)

When we used to obey our parents
(Or opted to play outside so we didn't have to.)

You used to listen to the radio all day long just to record your FAVORITE song of ALL time.

"Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" was both a game and a TV game show.

Captain Planet. He's a Hero.
(Gonna take pollution down to zero!)

You knew that Kimberly, the pink ranger, and Tommy, the green ranger, were meant to be together.

You remember when Super Nintendos and Sega Genisis became popular.

You always wanted to send in a tape to America's Funniest Home Videos . . . but never taped anything funny.

You remember watching Home Alone 1, 2 , and 3 . . . and tried to pull the pranks on "intruders"

You remember watching:
-The Magic School Bus
-Wishbone
-Reading Rainbow on PBS.
-One Saturday Morning
(What about Square One?)

You remember when Yo-Yos were cool.
(And kooshes, too)

You remember those Where's Waldo books.

You remember eating Warheads.

You remember watching:
-the 1st Batman
-Aladdin
-Ninja Turtles
-3 Ninjas movies.

You remember Ring Pops.

You remember drinking Surge, and Tang.

If you remember when every thing was "da BOMB!"

When they made the new lunchables so that you could make pizza AND tacos.
(Or the first lunchables, period.)

You remember boom boxes vs. cd players.
(I remember the guys who used to walk around with radios on their shoulders.)

Making those little paper fortune cookie things, and then predicting your life with them.

You played and/or collected "Pogs" :)
(I had one that was bubblegum scented.)

You had at least one Tamagotchi, GigaPet, or Nano and brought it everywhere.

. . . Furbies.

You haven't always had a computer, and it was cool to have the internet.
(My first interaction with the net was researching Snoopy for art class in 7th grade.)

When Windows 95 was the best.

You watched the original cartoons of Rugrats, Power Rangers, and Ninja Turtles.
(And played with pizza-scented Ninja Turtle action figures)

Michael Jordan was a king.
(And Brad Renfro was a dreamboat.)

YIKES pencils and erasers were the stuff!
(With mini treasure trolls pencil-toppers.)

All your school supplies were "Lisa Frank" brand.

You remember when the new Beanie Babies and Talking Elmo were always sold out

You collected those Beanie Babies.

Carebears
(Popples!)

Gak was the coolest stuff invented.

Lambchop's song never ended.

The old dollar bills.

Silver dollars, which were cool to have.

You remember a time before the WB.
(Life before Dawson... I miss it.)

You collected all the Troll dolls

If you even know what an original walkman is.

You remember wanting to sit on the orange Nickelodeon couch.

You've gotten creeped out by "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"

You know the Macarena by heart.

"Talk to the hand" . . . enough said

You always said, "Then why don't you marry it!"

You went to McDonald's to play in the playplace.
(I still do. Is that so wrong?)

You remember hit clips being the best thing ever invented.

You remember playing on merry go rounds at the playground.
(Trust me, it's even more fun to break into a playground to play at night.)

Before the MySpace frenzy . . .

Before the Internet & text messaging . . .
Before Sidekicks & iPods . . .
Before MIKE JONES . . .
Before PlayStation2 or X-BOX . . .
Before Spongebob . . .

Back when you put off the 5 hours of homework you had every night.
(Cause you weren't sure which pocket it was in in your Trapper Keeper)

When light up sneakers were cool.

When you rented VHS tapes, not DVDs.

When gas was $0.95 a gallon & Caller ID was a new thing.

When we recorded stuff on VCRs.
(Or just missed the show, because you knew it would run again in summer and that was sufficient)

When we called the radio station to request songs to hear off of our walkman.
(And to vote for the "Top Five at Nine")

When checking out drawing books and that one book about the rainbow fish from the library was THE cool thing to do.

You had slap braclets!
(And the resulting welts from overzealous friends.)

And you know what a crazy bone is...

Way back.

----
Never thought it all might change when I was older. Slap bracelets, tag, Goosebumps books, cops 'n' robbers, and even Warheads (in some public schools) are now mostly banned from use by children for various asinine "safety" reasons. Slap bracelets are the gateway prop to fetishism, after all, and playing tag (or any other game) has proven to be the source of slight discomfort to children who just aren't good at it. Poor dears. The 90's were the beginning of the end, I think. I don't quite miss them, but they sure were better than what we have now in alot of ways.