Things You Don’t Miss

Crabs. Where did they all go?

Dial up internet where someone picking up the phone on the other side of the house could kick you offline. It was especially awful if you were in the middle of a conversation on AIM or trying to do research for a school project. It would also take forever to load a video clip or picture.

The FBI warning before movies.

Donald

Getting driving directions from people.

Shitty TV resolution on small, square screens.

Paying for porn.

Smelling cigarette smoke in Public.

Awful coffee and bad bread.

People dying from HIV

"I wish I'd brought that cassette on the trip!"

Making "long distance" phone calls - "person to person" vs "station to station" and expensive as hell (for the time).

Rush

The Bubonic Plague

Paper maps.

[quote]"I wish I'd brought that cassette on the trip!"

Cassettes - winding along to your favorite song.

I love paper maps, r15! I still use them on road trips

Horse shit all over the street instead of smog

Disposable cameras

And taking the film to get developed at a drug store.

Being kind by rewinding.

Jokes about child and wife beating. Constant threat of nuclear war, casual racism in every situation, pantyhose, homophobia as default and violence as an answer to it. An "it's not my business" attitude about things. Pleated pants and having to be dressed up to leave the house.

Pay phones, VCRs, vinyl records

Rotary phones 📞

8 Track tapes

Having to stand up and walk over to the television to change the channel

AND only having seven channels to watch

Going to the library for research/information about any topic

Having to load the operating system by floppy disc each time you fired up your computer.

The old card catalog system you had to use at libraries -- must have been a bitch to maintain.

People writing checks at the checkout (manned). Showing ID, etc.

Yet, somehow, it still does seem to take forever when you're waiting in line. Even with debit cards, price scanners, etc. Still seems slow.

Also dot matrix printers (I think I had this exact one):

R29 I bought a card catalogue cabinet at an auction when the library went digital years ago. It's a beautiful 24 drawer oak cabinet and now proudly sits in my living room. People always comment on it.

[quote]vinyl records

I used to be somewhat compulsively audiophiliac, so while I miss the idea of vinyl records, I don't miss actually playing them. Nearly every time I'd put on a record, I'd worry about how much better the music might sound if I just bought X cartridge or Y turntable.

Then I started having tinnitus, and sitting eight to ten feet away from the speakers became annoying, as the hiss seemed to take up the entire space between the speakers and my brain. I could barely pay attention to the music.

Now I listen to music on my computer in iTunes on Bowers & Wilkins computer speakers, and I'm much happier than I ever was while I considered myself an audiophile. Now I just listen to the music.

Being lost. I have a terrible sense of direction.

Waiting for a phone call at home.

Writing checks.

The cashier calling the CC companies for an approval code which now seems insane.

Road atlases and maps in the car. Thank god for GPS and Smartphones.

[quote]Yet, somehow, it still does seem to take forever when you're waiting in line. Even with debit cards, price scanners, etc. Still seems slow.

Friends and I have also commented on this. Checkout lines don't seem to move any faster than they did back in the days when people wrote checks and paid in cash or, god forbid, a CC company had to be called as the above poster mentioned. And the clerk had to manually enter each price for everything. Lines today seem just as slow and aggravating. Weird, isn't it?

You could never seem to find a pay phone when you really needed one. And they were filthy and crawling with germs, too. Don't miss pay phones at all.

Rewinding VHS tapes

The long cord on landline phones.

In retrospect, it was kind of fun to wrap yourself in them when having a phone conversation

JFK.

Walkmans and portable CD players as the best way to listen to music on the go.

[quote]The long cord on landline phones.

My aunt and uncle still have one of those banana-yellow rotary wall phones in their kitchen, with the cord that's 10,000 feet long. They have modern cordless phones elsewhere in the house, but they've never been able to part with their 70s rotary phone.

[quote] with the cord that's 10,000 feet long.

😂😂

[quote]Smelling cigarette smoke in Public

Smelling cigarette smoke in public has been replaced by smelling marijuana smoke everywhere in public. For whatever reason, the marijuana smoke seems to go further and last longer before dissipating than cigarette smoke ever did.

Pauly Shore

R44, OMG yes. I was so happy when cigarettes got banned in restaurants, bars, and clubs. I couldn't go out without coming home smelling like shit before the ban.

I was recently in California, and pot smell was everywhere. I hate that smell.

My fifth grade teacher. She is STILL one of the worst people I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. Most people who had her as a teacher will say the same thing...and a lot of her fellow faculty as well. She was forced to resign the year after she taught my class. She's currently 75. May she rot in Hell...very, very soon.

I could written your post word for word, R34.

Newspaper delivery. When the delivery person actually delivered one, that is. After months of either not receiving a paper or getting it after 8 am, when I left for work, I canceled both subscriptions. I do not miss the hassle at all.

Answering machines

Hunting down out-of-print books - I had a list of books I wanted to read. Occasionally I'd find one at a used book store. Interlibrary loans weren't so easy then. That list kept growing. I ordered things from a big local bookstore sometimes. After I started using Amazon, I cleared that list within a few months. Now I find most things via the ILL system.

Calling stores to find out if they have the thing you want. Driving around from place to place looking for the thing you want.

Busy signals. My nephew with an MBA heard one and asked what it was, he thought it meant disconnected.

Catcalling +/ people feeling that they have the right to comment on your appearance, good or bad, in front of you.

R2 I’d be downloading a new gangbang or double anal video and my parents would pick up the landline phone and kick my ass off of the net. Pissed me off and killed my wood.

DUIs, pre-Uber and Lyft(not applying this to myself because alcohol doesn't work on me, has no effect whatsoever beyond a slight unpleasantness)

Slow, noisy internet dialup modems

Chunky heels(although, those are making a comeback)

Old smartphones that had a special button for Facebook or Myspace.

Cheap man-made fabrics that smelled funny and didn't breathe

R47, why was she so awful?

[quote] Calling stores to find out if they have the thing you want. Driving around from place to place looking for the thing you want.

Wow! I hadn’t thought about that in years. I totally forgot all about it.

I still call Walmart to ask if they have what I want. My lists are long and I like to keep them tied up waiting on me for hours.

T9 predictive texting on a cell phone.

Typewriters or even the earliest word processors. If you ever worked in an office before the early 90's, the amount of time wasted on correcting typos was insane.

And typing papers in college were a nightmare.

I'd like to go back to school to take some classes just to see how much things have changed. It seems SO MUCH EASIER now.

Fleas on pets and fleas from pets. That Advantage stuff and the like works wonders.

R60 You reminded me of my first couple of years of graduate school! I had to write papers in Russian. The department had Cyrillic elements for the Selectric typewriters, but there were only two and my classes had 15 people in them. We had to coordinate among ourselves to share the Cyrillic balls. But we could use the Wang PC's, which were the only word processors that could print in Cyrillic. The catch was we input in Latin letters using a series of Alt+numbers codes to produce each letter. There were always tons of errors and a ten page paper took hours and hours to get right. And you never saw the errors until you printed it.

To add insult to injury, you had to input all the formatting (margins, typeface, etc.) at the very beginning. Sometimes, you would luck out on a page with no errors in the Russian, but misformatted so badly you had to start over.

(I got a Mac in 1998, which had WYSIWYG, including Cyrillic.)

I’m not him, r62, but I found your post fascinating. I really did.

Condoms.

Orange fat people rage tweeting

*winks at r64*

Low-fat or fat-free everything as the solution to weight issues.

PS - I MEAN YOU SNACKWELLS. IT'S THE SUGAR

Remember WOW chips and Baked chips?

R35 and everyone else. You really should keep paper foldable maps as a back up in your car. You never know when your phone might be lost, die, or lose signal. And if you have a bad sense of direction, a compass!

Last week I was walking through a park and saw a pay phone R37. Out of curiosity I picked up the receiver to listen and it actually had a dialtone! Didn’t have any quarters on me to see if it would work but I bet it did!

R35 Good advice. I still have paper maps and a compass built into my rear view mirror.

R35 that's a good one. The LA Thomas Guide was the worst. I still don't know how we managed drive, turn pages and follow the crazy index at the back. It seems ridiculous to me now.

R50- I still have one.

I still have a VCR, though I rarely use it.

The Zip drive

Headlight dimmer switches on the floorboard.

Gym

I agree I don’t miss people dying from AIDS. Pay phones sucked as did land lines.

Commuting.

Combined between my husband and I, we spent 15 hours per week going back and forth from work. Now we are both happily working from home, yet getting on each other's nerves a bit more during shut-in.

Harry

Harry and Markle

Snail mailing someplace requesting an application, which they snail mailed back to you in some undetermined amount of time, which you filled out by hand and then snail mailed back to them, and in another undetermined amount of time they'd snail mail you a confirmation letter or what have you.

After searching through some big book in my high school guidance counselor's office in order to find out the locations where I could take the SAT, and where to write to about doing that, this is how I signed up to take the SAT.

R36 My friends and I have also discussed how slow the grocery lines are today. We've surmised that it probably has to do with the (mainly female) managers afraid to 'trigger' their Zoomer/younger Millennial employees by telling them to hurry it up. I'm 41 and recall as a kid in the '80s and teen in the '90s that the cashiers were rather efficient. I worked at McDonald's in high school but had friends who worked at the local supermarket, and they were often demanded to speed it up. Even into the 2000s. But that changed within the past 15 years or so.

Having to go to a store to buy porn... physical, paper magazines.

In 1989 my gay life began. I started responding to personal ads in the Village Voice. To respond to a personals ad I had to write a letter describing myself etc and even sometimes enclose a photo. I would mail it to the VV and they would forward the letter to the person who place the ad. If I received a response at all it could take up to two weeks. Ahh the good old days - NOT.

"between my husband and I"

Oh, dear!

Having to file tax returns on paper.

R60 - yeah, students today just take pictures of the chalkboard and the presentations. Or the teacher just puts everything out there for them to download.

The Club

[quote]The LA Thomas Guide was the worst. I still don't know how we managed drive, turn pages and follow the crazy index at the back. It seems ridiculous to me now.

Or you had to pull over to the side of the road or into a parking lot and the street you needed wasn't there.

"Where the FUCK is this place?"

Sometimes when you finally managed to find a pay phone, the damn phone was dead. If the call was really important, you'd walk into a store or a business: "Could I please use your phone to just make a quick local call? It will only take a minute, I promise." Sometimes you'd get lucky and the person in the store/business would be sympathetic and let you make the call.

[quote]Having to go to a store to buy porn... physical, paper magazines.

And always being paranoid that somebody who knew you would see you going in/coming out.

Polio

Andy Warhol

Having to work.

Gym class. I miss even less being picked last for each sport and having to square dance with the gym teacher.

Female gym teachers who were obvious bulldykes but still had to pretend they were straight because of the times. They were "single" and that other woman they live with was their "roommate."

Angela Fucking Lansbury. RIP.

Angela Lansbury is still alive.

Before all cars had fuel injection it took FOREVER for a car to warm up and be able to give you heat in the winter.

Re phonebooths: I remember their being a popular hangout among teens, for some reason. Usually the truant types. In my Massachusetts town, a group of them (boys and girls) would sit inside them and smoke cigarettes. Occasionally, they would call somebody, but normally they just sat there smoking, irritating adults who needed to use the phone. This was the late '80s when the sight of underage kids smoking wasn't something people got worked up over. Usually, it was ignored. I remember walking by one day and seeing a man arguing with some teens. Nothing was said about their smoking; he was just telling them to get a life and to be considerate of others who needed to use the phone. I'm sure that man was happy when cell phones became commonplace a decade later.

Before ATM's (yes - a long time ago) - you had to wait in line at the bank to deposit your money. I remember waiting in line for an hour or more on the weekends with my mom.

And you had to keep a decent amount of cash on you for everyday life - making muggings very profitable if you saw them just go to the bank.

Also - travelers cheques.

It was ridiculous what we did before plastic.

Being stuck in traffic with no real known alternatives to get around it - or even knowing that you're heading into a pile-up.

Yes you got some very vague info on the radio, but then it was - ok, how the fuck do I get a different route?

I think we spent a lot more time in traffic years ago - it seemed that way to me at least.

You were just at the mercy of the road - it was so frustrating.

[quote]Rotary phones 📞

Don't you miss dialing rotary phones with a pencil?

Loading green bar into the telex machine every fucking night!!!!!

I don't miss waiting a week between episodes when watching a TV show. I like that I can binge watch at my heart's content. The only drawback is that, after I'm done, I have to wait an entire year (or more) to watch the next season instead of three/four months.

The stupid Atkins diet. A few people I knew that went on it started developing snouts, weird body odors and ruddy skin.

Giant lumbering cars with V8 engines and rear stabilizers (fins)

Totally unreliable weather prediction made planning outdoor activities a total crapshoot. The Farmer's Almanac was the most accurate source of info.

Having to pretend that I respected religious people.

Having to go IN to a shop to buy something.

R110 what's wrong with religious people? You seem to have a black-and-white view about religious people. I believe in God and yet I have liberal views about other things, namely same-sex marriage. Imagine that.

^It's OT and could be a 600 post thread. I'm sure you're nice but you're reading a book of EDITED fairy tales. What are the official policies of your religion? What are religious people in this country doing to stop the big lie? "Thou shalt not bear false witness.." Why isn't every Christian up in arms about this massive, pervasive, delusional lie? Because delusional is what religious people do best. Put your palms together and make a wish. Get real and think.

[106] Which is why about 70% of the shows I watch are completed runs only. Just finished Sons of Anarchy, and am currently on The Americans. I plan to tackle Shameless next assuming it will finish its final season by then. There's really just a handful of shows I watch which are still airing new episodes, most of those started before binge-streaming was a viable option.

Driving home from the bars.

The way most cars would start rusting after 3 or 4 years.

Visiting all the record stores in town in order to find a particular record or CD.

When you had to grow your own vegetables in order to eat organic.

Going to the supermarket and having to pay for my food in cash. Supermarkets didn't start accepting credit cards until about 1993.

R108- Those cars are BEAUTIFUL

Dialing 411 for Information, asking the operator for the address so you could try and find the place.

Eating canned vegetables because there was no fresh produce in the winter other than root vegetables. Today it's unimaginable that we wouldn't have 100 choices daily. My local market has 20 different kinds of yams alone. How different can they be?

Car and TV attenaes. Having to call for a taxi. Not knowing when a bus or train is going to arrive. Using a transfer on public transportation.

"[R108]- Those cars are BEAUTIFUL "

They are, but you wouldn't want them clogging the highways getting 8 mpg spewing lead-laced CO2 into the atmosphere

Corporal punishment in schools. Thighmasters. Having to carry money around rather than plastic. John Boehner. Paul Ryan. Strom Thurmond. Henry Hyde.

Dick Clark.

[quote]"[[R108]]- Those cars are BEAUTIFUL "

[quote]They are, but you wouldn't want them clogging the highways getting 8 mpg spewing lead-laced CO2 into the atmosphere

You also wouldn't want to get into an accident with one:

Tang. Carnation Instant Breakfast.

I shake my head at all the crap that was fed to kids in the 70's and 80's.

Paper maps.

Paper calendars.

Having to bring a camera with you on vacation.

Having to really think about what to take pictures of because each shot cost money.... and then having to wait a week or weeks to know how the shots turned out.

As someone else already said, T9 Texting. Ugh.

Having to constantly ask for directions to places.

r119 You've never heard of checks?

[quote]The stupid Atkins diet. A few people I knew that went on it started developing snouts, weird body odors and ruddy skin.

How is it any different from today's Keto Diet?

Porn magazines

Porn videos on VHS / DVD

I won't miss seeing OP's pic

[quote]Porn magazines Porn videos on VHS / DVD

& porno places - jerking off in those horrible booths.

R125- What a TRAGEDY crashing that BEAUTIFUL 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air.

I have to disagree with OP about manual car windows. They could save your life in a serious crash: if your gas tank is damaged, you cannot risk turning on the ignition key, and then your windows won't open. If your doors are jammed, good luck not frying and dying.

This happened to my mother in 1986. I'll never forget it happened to be the same day the Challenger exploded. She totaled her car and it ended up on its roof; with the roof dented, the doors were stuck. She rolled down the driver's side window, took out her handbag, and went to the nearest house to call my father to pick her up. She didn't have a scatch; the seatbelt saved her life, and I'm so glad she was able to roll down that window!

A Slovenian whore as first lady.

[QUOTE] They could save your life in a serious crash: if your gas tank is damaged, you cannot risk turning on the ignition key, and then your windows won't open. If your doors are jammed, good luck not frying and dying.

Fine. I’d rather be dead than have to roll windows up and down again.

[quote}Crabs. Where did they all go?

Ticks. That's why we now have Lyme disease.

Dialup modems.

Taxi Driver (thanks uber!)

I missed the memo, but did crab lice go away, somehow?

I had it only once, back in 2001. Got it from a trick. That sucked, and the OTC remedies did nothing. I had the good instinct to simply shave my whole crotch/ass area entirely, and they were gone at last.

But back to my question - are these fuckers trending down? ;)

Lots of shaved pubes now, both men and women. That's why crabs aren't around as much.

R129, I'm not keto, nor have I ever been, but the keto diet plan seems more balanced than the average Atkins diet was, back when Atkins was popular. Keto is generally more inclusive of vegetarian protein sources, vegetables and foods that contain fiber, whereas Atkins was a colon-clogging, meat-worshiping death wish.

Yeah, people lost weight, but they also lost their nutrient stores, a bunch of hair off of their heads, their pooping schedule and some of their cognitive function.

[quote]Lots of shaved pubes now, both men and women. That's why crabs aren't around as much.

Are yours shaved, gurl?

Old white gays thinking they understand soul music. Stay in your lane Judy boys.

[quote]Old white gays thinking they understand soul music.

This is hilarious.

What's to understand, Mary?

Picture it:

White gays dancin' at a party.

R143: "Stop dancing - you don't understand this music!"

Picture this:

White gay singing along to Wilson Pickett.

R143: Stop that singing, you don't understand this music!

R143 can do the boogaloo... he can do the jerk... he can do the mashed potato...watch him work!...movin' on the dance floor...doin' the pony...like Bonnie Maronie.

I don't miss walking to a call box on the highway when my junker car broke down halfway from Vegas to LA. And if someone stopped to offer help or a ride, you were faced with a life or death decision: accept a ride from a possible serial killer, or sit idly waiting for a serial killer or tow truck, whichever got there first.

@r133, "[R125]- What a TRAGEDY crashing that BEAUTIFUL 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air. "

You can still buy them, this one didn't sell for $36,000 because the bid wasn't high enough

The bleached blonde, big-fake-titted, flat-assed, deep orange tan American beauty standard. This was the standard Hollywood makeover formula for so long, too. Instead of finding people that looked like this naturally, they'd take a freckled redhead, someone like Lindsey Lohan, for instance, and slowly pressure them into conforming to this cookie-cutter look.

I know I am not unique for holding this opinion; even when this look was the sole definition of what it was to be 'hot', or qualify as attractive, people constantly questioned and criticized it.

But, really, it took the Kardashians to come along and change the blonde, overtanned, blow-up doll status quo. Angelina, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba and Beyonce almost certainly played a role in changing the public's beauty standards, by deviating from that norm.

I'm sort of glad those days are behind us. To me, a lot of those Barbies looked like dudes with racks. Many had tube-shaped, square torsos without waist definition, shapeless hips and legs and thin, coarse hair, like a man's.

R150- How could you not mention Pamela Anderson who is the EPITOMY of the Bleached Blond, Big FAKE Tits, Bird Brained Bimbo.

I don’t miss that Covid spreading dog whistling orange turd and his mail order bride in the white house!

R6- I'm still using the SAME Sony 20 inch Wega I bought at the WIZ in November 2000.

That’s nothing to brag about.

[quote] Re phonebooths: I remember their being a popular hangout among teens,

Oh, dear!

[quote] Car and TV attenaes.

Oh, DEAR!

[quote] This happened to my mother in 1986. She totaled her car and it ended up on its roof; with the roof dented, the doors were stuck. She rolled down the driver's side window,

Wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re suggesting your mother got in a crash so damaging the vehicle ended up on its roof, and the damage was so bad the doors were stuck as a result, yet the glass windows weren’t broken?!

Hmmmmm.

[quote]Old white gays thinking they understand soul music.

White gays have always been supportive of black music artists. What the fuck do you think disco was? Diana Ross, Donna Summer, etc. White gays have supported and nurtured lots of black music.

[quote]Picture it:

[quote]White gays dancin' at a party.

Like The Boys In The Band dancing to 'Heatwave', even though they don't 'understand' it.

Going to the supermarket ca. 1980 when the paper shopping bags had no handles and you had to hold all of the bags from the bottom.

"EPITOMY"

Oh, dear!

R159 or do you just miss holding bottoms in general?

R159 - Yes - and the replacement was a million small light-weight plastic bags instead that we're just now realizing aren't probably good for the environment. Handles - that's all we needed. Those paper bags SUCKED and yes, stuff would fall out of them all the time.

I don't miss how often cars used to break down. Car quality has improved dramatically the past 30 years thanks to competition from the Japanese.

It wasn't uncommon to see cars broken down by the side of the road all the time on a daily basis. I rarely see that now - even before cell phones.

[quote] It wasn't uncommon to see cars broken down by the side of the road all the time on a daily basis. I rarely see that now

And when you do see it, chances are it’s because of something simple like a flat tire instead of steam coming out of the engine.

Trying to send a fax.

Waiting in a long line to buy movie tickets.

Paying every bill through the mail.

Having to buy money orders or international reply coupons.

Filling out long forms with a pen.

Traveler's Checks.

Working at the library reference desk and having to find the right book to answer a patron's question about the beneficial effects of drinking one's own urine. I couldn't find a book on that.

R168 I miss the reference desk librarians. i wanted to be one when I was a kid and I was sorry to see them go. I thought they knew EVERYTHING!

[quote]But, really, it took the Kardashians to come along and change the blonde, overtanned, blow-up doll status quo.

Perhaps the Kardashians should receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

"[R6]- I'm still using the SAME Sony 20 inch Wega I bought at the WIZ in November 2000. "

Oh, honey, for a $199 you can get a TV that you can actually see and at your age you can't take your eyesight for granted

R169-My tv cost me $349 in November 2000. I just looked it up on Amazon- I can buy a brand new 50 inch 4K LED tv for $348.

Maybe it’s time for a new 📺

When in Europe having to constantly change currencies and having to deal with passport control going from country to country.

@r170, Well, good for you. Now, lets talk about that 1972 Pinto you drive

Living close to family

[quote] —not the urine drinking guy

Yeah, right.

I paid over $400 for a Sony Trinitron 15" color TV with NO REMOTE in 1975. And that was LOT of money back then (my annual salary was only around $10K.)

I believe the passenger-side window was broken/ crackled (the way safety glass fractures), r156, but the driver's side window was not, or my mother couldn't have rolled it down. I guess the damage was worse on the passenger side; I don't really remember (I was a kid). We did take some pictures of the totaled car, but God knows where they are now.

Why would electric windows stop working? When modern cars get into serious accidents they automatically go into accident mode - blinkers, doors unlock, interior lights turn on, seats move upright, seatbelts tension and airbags deploy. Why would the windows not work?

To add Mercedes and BMWs from the 90s did those things.

I miss the not-so-distant days when people could share/enjoy each other's culture without it being labeled 'appropriation' and be shamed for it.

I don't miss Gangsta Rap. What a bunch of nonsense/noise!

[quote]Old white gays thinking they understand soul music. Stay in your lane Judy boys.

Same goes for blacks and musical theater. In fact, there were fewer of them working on Broadway pre-2000 because the majority of them were not interested. Those who did venture onto Broadway (like Audra McDonald) were called 'Oreos' by other blacks. Part of the reason Broadway is in decline is because more POC (both on stage and behind the scenes) are being hired for diversity's sake, but they just don't understand the art form nor all the hard work it requires (e.g., showing up on time, doing 8 shows a week).

Commercials for The Clapper

And Chia Pets

When it finally airs: The 'Friends' Reunion.

Damn R181, that is racist as fuck.

Luggage without wheels. How no one thought of putting wheels on a bag before the 90s I’ll never know.

I hate wheels, even if my case has wheels I pick it up.

^ Pretends he's alpha

"I hate waiting for automatic doors to open, so I just walk through the glass"

"I hate wheels, even if my case has wheels I pick it up. "

Sure, Ted...

R188 = prispott with wheels - you can hear him coming a mile off...

^ Did I hurt your big boy alpha feels? Suck it up, buttercup, anyone who carries a suitcase with wheels looks like a total dweeb that doesn't know how wheels work. Do you carry your bicycle down the side of the road as well. Idiot!

Climbing up on the roof to adjust the TV antenna.

Be Kind Rewind

I'm a fast walker and sometimes it's easier for me to just carry the suitcase instead of rolling it along.

VCRs, Cassette tapes, 8-tracks, and their respective players.

[quote]I'm a fast walker and sometimes it's easier for me to just carry the suitcase instead of rolling it along.

I'm a prisspot and I'm too prissy to carry a suitcase and I always roll it along.

GTE Flip Phones

I almost, kind of miss it...... Is there a movie??

[quote] Harry and Markle

Guess there’s not a lot going on in the UK

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.

R175, speaking of which, I do not miss those days of crappy cathode ray televisions with no remote control. Growing up as the youngest in the household, I was somehow designated the channel changer/volume controller, so I would sit close to the tv, ready for mother, father, and older sisters to bark their orders at me. As the tv set got older, my added tasks included adjusting the horizontal, vertical, contrast, color balance, etc.

r183 I haven't had cable tv with actual commercials in a loooooong time, but if I recall correctly, both the Chia Pet and the Clapper commercials ALWAYS came on around the Christmas season as good "gift ideas." I don't know if they still do, but it used to be like clockwork.

I find infomercials and QVC to be hilarious. It’s weird because I actually hate most shorter commercials. I don’t understand ppl looking forward to the Super Bowl commercials.

Infomercials are so over the top and the salespeople are so dead serious (like David Venable on QVC).

When we were wrapping up my aunt's estate, we discovered that the old rotary phone in her kitchen didn't belong to her. She'd been renting if from the phone company for 50 years.

We have no explanation for this as she had a cordless phone in her bedroom and an iPhone. Why rent a phone for 50 years? The phone company didn't even want it back.

It's amazing it lasted 50 years.

We had the same phones for over 30 years and they were rented. It's how it worked in the old days.

[quote]I'm a fast walker and sometimes it's easier for me to just carry the suitcase instead of rolling it along.

R194 The wheels can't keep up with you? Are they square or triangular?

Playing whist.

Having to endure cigarette smoke on a long haul flight.

Oh god, yes, R208. I do NOT miss having to deal with cigarette smoke on airplanes.

I also don't miss having to deal with it at work. Or in bars. Or in restaurants.

Smoking bans have been a GOD-SEND.

[quote]Having to endure cigarette smoke on a long haul flight.

for a long time they were always at the back of the plane. I don't know what you had to ENDURE.

My neighbor's (across the street) front-yard trash accumulation and home-made fire pit. And him, because he died.

Teaching.

Being at the top of the pecking order. Now I can sit back and laugh while other races and sexes fail and flop.

R210, AYFKM?

R210 So what if smokers were on the 'back of the plane' -- An plane is an enclosed area. It's not like a bus where you can open a window or a train where you can move to a different car.

You, sir, are an idiot.

Always the stupid ones calling people idiot.

You had no reason to be bothered by the smoke in other sections - unless you're a total pirisspot. Oh, wait...

r215 doubles down on his idiocy.

When smoking was allowed in bars, people didn't bring their fucking kids to bars.

R201 - our TV console had a red "reset" button on the back, which my dad told to never press. Of course, occasionally one of us would press it and then have to sheepishly tell my dad that we did and he'd have to recalibrate the whole TV.

Having to schlep back to Blockbuster on a Sunday to return a video before being charged for an extra day.

Rush.

[quote] She'd been renting if from the phone company for 50 years.... Why rent a phone for 50 years?

People don't look closely at their phone bills and see, item by item, what they're paying for.

My mom was renting a phone for decades as well. If you add up the cost of the rent, it's probably a few thousand dollars.

Anyway, one day, I pointed out the rent to my mom. That day, we bought new phones (land lines) and cancelled the rental of her phones.

Eating only hot cereal in the winter. Mom had a constant rotation of Cream of Wheat, Farina, and Wheatena with Oatmeal occasionally thrown into the rotation. On school days, there was no time for eggs, pancakes, etc.

Living without A/C. Our house had been built in the 50's and, although it was in a nicely shaded area, the humidity was no joke. We just set up various box fans on the staircase landings. Sleeping was almost impossible.

Hanging laundry on the clothes line in the back of our house. While I do miss the wonderful aroma of sheets or towels that have been line-dried outside, it was a bitch to hear those first few raindrops or crack of thunder and then have to sprint out of the house to bring in the clothes!

Air drying clothes makes them stiff. Not a fan.

R223- ESPECIALLY towels.

[quote]it was a bitch to hear those first few raindrops or crack of thunder and then have to sprint out of the house to bring in the clothes!

Unfortunately, there was no early-warning system to let you know that passing birds were about to crap on your freshly laundered towels.

Hanging clothes outside on a clothesline is trashy and lower-class.

[quote] Hanging clothes outside on a clothesline is trashy and lower-class.

What? I don't think so. Vera Donovan used a clothesline.

r227 clotheslines are considered trashy in upscale neighborhoods.

R228 Well, aren't you the arbiter of taste!

Whatya think about washers and dryers on the porch?

Six pins, Dolores! You know that's how I like it, not five.

I thought "clotheslines are low class" was common knowledge. It's like plastic lawn ornaments and that kind of shit.

Don't get your panties in a wad. This was the 70's and almost every house on our block had clothes lines. We moved to NJ from Brooklyn and line drying is what we were used to.

Houses built in the 50's couldn't always accommodate washers and dryers. In fact, when my Mom bought the new washer and dryer, an electrician had to come in and do something so that the circuits wouldn't trip.

We had our clothes line dried by the maids. Mother didn’t like to tumble dry anything because she thought it ruined garments. Of course the good items were dry cleaned.

Of COURSE you did r233. 🙄

R234 yes we did! I grew up in a former British colony. We had staff and good weather.

R204, probably similar to paying the cable bill for several years and forgetting you were paying rent on the cable/dvr box and wifi router. I finally wised up, cut the cable, and bought my own router.

I bought my own router, too. The problem is that the cable company will always tell you that it's your router that's the problem because that's the cheapest thing to "fix." (Versus messing around with the outside poles, wires, etc.) After I bought my own router, the cable guy said my router was the problem and swapped it out. There I was, paying rent again for this stupid router.

I was going to buy another router, but, again, there's problems with the router (supposedly). Cable company swapped it out again.

Women having to marry the men who raped them because of pregnancies.

Clotheslines are not trashy. They're very useful and good for the environment. That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. Talk about putting on airs - stop being so pretentious.

And yes, many people who have clotheslines also have dryers.

Clotheslines are considered trashy in upscale neighborhoods in the US. That's just how it is.

Clothesline are not trashy and they dry my Jacklyn Smith fall collection wonderfully. And for extra snazziness, the clothesline is encircled by cinder blocks replicating Stonehenge. I even have my Virgin Mary statue in the front yard pointed to gaze in that direction.

r241 do you also have an inflatable Santa and reindeer for Christmastime, that you leave up until February?

R240 - no - that's just you being snobby. Some pretentious UMC McMansion HOAs may ban them, but it doesn't mean that real upper income people look down on them.

Martha Stewart's servants seem to use clotheslines at Martha's residence.

Lots of people, incl. me, use garment racks (indoors) to dry clothes on hangers.

Sorry r243 clotheslines are trashy in upscale neighborhoods. You won't find any in Fairfield. Looks like this has triggered your class anxiety syndrome!

[quote]Lots of people, incl. me, use garment racks (indoors) to dry clothes on hangers.

Those are fine, as long as they're indoors.

Shoulder pads on women

R245 - you have the class anxiety syndrome, spilling out Fairfield as proof of your high-class pretentions. You're not upper class no matter how much you try and you don't know as much as you think you do.

I'm pegging you as a label queen and I think I'm right.

Nope r248. You mustn't get out much. Clotheslines in upscale neighborhoods are looked down on. I thought everybody knew this. They're like lawn ornaments and that kind of thing. Sorry to make you defensive. God, who knew clotheslines could cause so much strife?

BTW I actually live in Fairfield County, and was raised there.

Many Chicago suburbs fined people for line drying outdoors. Many of the mid-century modern homes have drying line hooks hung in the basement above asbestos tiles. These suburbs also refused easements for sidewalks because they didn’t want to give access to people who couldn’t afford cars.

iPhones, texting, Zoom, TikTok.

Everyone - pay attention please! R249 was raised in Fairfield County, CT - home to some of the most expensive real estate in the country! And also some of the worst - including Bridgeport, but let's not talk about the other 80% of the county.

R249 has come to tell you that, in his limited experience in the very Fairfield, CT county mind you!, he has decided that his experience is above question or reproach. (I thought everyone knew that!)

It has been decided - clotheslines denote you are poor. They don't offer an alternative to hot dryers; they aren't better for the environment; they cause more damage to the fabrics than dryers; the clothes don't smell better after being in a dryer; and they don't offer a place to put clothes that can't go in the dryer.

R249 has spoken and as it is written, it is done.

My clothes line poles were swathed with encrusted Swarovski crystals. No one would have dared say the weren't classy enough.

Meanwhile, I keep wanting to post Elaine Stritch. But I just can't. No matter how often she screamed night after night in Virginia Woolf "I don't bray!" -- yes, you did. But with such impeccable comic intelligence and timing, I want you back Maybe even double for when you tried to sing and carried it off.

Another one who doesn't miss that old luggage. My large Samsonite suitcase from the 80's has wheels on the base, but it is still the old hinged hardshell design, making it a quite narrow base for 4 wheels. No metal handle. It has a flat plastic handle on the end of a retractable nylon strap, which is barely long enough for a short person like me. You don't tilt it up to move it. The wheeled base remains flat on the ground, so it is quite unsteady to maneuver quickly. I use it for off-season clothing storage in my closet. The latest wheeled designs are so much better in an era where porters are no longer the norm.

Radio. Or more to the point, yakkety disc jockeys being painfully unfunny and non-stop commercials.

I miss commercial-free Youtube. WTF?

[quote] Climbing up on the roof to adjust the TV antenna.

Falling off said roof.

R254 here - I meant to say it has no metal *retractable* handle, like you would find on the newer suitcases. I'm aware there is a handle on the top.

Calling the airlines over and over to get different prices, different rules, different answers or to see if the flight is on time. It was all a big mystery and you had to trust whatever voice you had on the phone was telling you the truth. You made a reservation on the phone and paid for the ticket at the airport 30 minutes beforehand.

You could make a reservation and tell them you would send a check and they would mail you the ticket BEFORE they got the check.

re: the clothesline debate - in the 70s we had an umbrella-style clothes dryer, which we only brought out a few times, but I remember how lovely the bedsheets smelled when we did. Fold it up and store it somewhere, then bring it out for use. We were able to mow the lawn with no problem because the socket is sunk into the ground. Similar to the one at the link.

I will NOT miss the fucking clothesline debate that exploded here, nor will I miss the accompanying class-warfare that was triggered by having a fucking clothesline.

Stay on topic, bitches!

Being punched. Being tripped. Being threatened.

Being called a pansy, a queer, a fag. Oh, and especially being called a faggot from random car windows.

[quote] Oh, and especially being called a faggot from random car windows.

Dayum. You must’ve worn caftans everywhere.

R263

No, no caftans, but I sure must have given off a vibe. I'm guessing I "walked like a girl."

I love ya anyway, r264.

*Muah*

R261 Thank you! This thread started out great and then deteriorated into that one-topic arguement. They should start their own thread. I'm glad we're back on track...

[quote]Going to the supermarket ca. 1980 when the paper shopping bags had no handles and you had to hold all of the bags from the bottom.

Going to the supermarket ca. 2021 when the paper shopping bags have no handles and you have to hold all of the bags from the bottom.

Going to the liquor store and having to hold the fucking bag underneath so that my Popov vodkas don’t fall out.

R159, the handles rip off easily though, so you can't really load too much into the bags.

Jesus r252 how insecure can you be?

r256 use an adblocker

An adblocker works for YouTube “commercials”?

Ublock origin

r273 Please explain how that works on commercials. I've used UBlock Origin for years (both Firefox and Chrome) and it has no effect on the pre-video ads.

Google "AdBlock Youtube" and you'll find the extension you need. Yes, it works.

Only seeing horror movies between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

"Being called a pansy"

Have you met Ted Cruz?...

The Pre-Civil Rights era.

^ I haven't seen that clip in a long time. I forgot how horrible they were

And, statistically, far more likely to have been Democrat for that time period in the South. Whoopsie!

Democrat In Name Only, R280. As soon as the Civil Rights era arrived, they went home to the place they always wanted to be: the flabby arms of the Grand Old Party.

Anyone that even took the most basic American History courses know all about the Dixiecrats and the Southern Strategy. I hate when the right tries to pull this Confederates = Democrats bull shit

[quote] Anyone that even took the most basic American History courses know all about the Dixiecrats and the Southern Strategy. I hate when the right tries to pull this Confederates = Democrats bull shit

Of course you do, dear.

Supermarket bagging clerks. I prefer to bag my own for two reasons: I can pack similar items, I.e. cold/frozen foods together and I can control how heavy the bags will be. There was an older gentleman who used to pack my groceries. He would pack canned goods with a jug of laundry detergent. I could barely lift the bag!

I don't miss living in a large city. I lived in large cities all of my life, and now I'm loving the peacefulness of the country life. I can zip into the city anytime I want, but I can still go home and enjoy how quiet it is. No traffic is also a huge plus.

I don't miss living in the country. I spent the first 24 years of my life living in rural North Carolina trying to escape. When it didn't happen naturally, I finally just packed all my cash and everything I could into a large suitcase and ran away to Manhattan. I've never regretted it and would never go back to live (I do visit). It was the very, very best thing I ever, ever did for myself.

^ Ran away on a Greyhound BUS to Manhattan. Just like My Sister Eileen and Wonderful Town!

TV's that are black and white only

Rotary phones

Transistor radios

Rotary phones did have their charms, as did cigarettes, and I miss them both.

Below, Miss Datalounge of 1957.

The audio quality on the old phone system was much better, but I definitely don’t miss the extortionate cost of long distance calls.

Everything about the old ATT phone system before deregulation was better, except the exorbitant prices. But the quality and excellence of the system was superb.

During Hurricane Sandy, when my sister didn't know whether I was dead or alive because I had switched to a much cheaper cable phone service but was without service because the electricity was out, i pulled my old Princess phone out of my closet and plugged it into my old ATT jack and it still worked although I had discontinued the service several years before.

It still worked! And the ATT operators put me through to my sister in North Carolina so she could know I was alive and basically OK. I loved the old ATT service.

[quote] And typing papers in college were a nightmare.

It wasn't that bad, provided one knew how to type. Pardon me, keyboard.

[quote] for a long time they were always at the back of the plane. I don't know what you had to ENDURE.

Low-life people with a filthy smelly addiction.

[quote] People dying from HIV

I won't miss Danny Pintauro when he dies. I was hoping his death would be at the hands of Panned Parenthood.

Planned

My distinct impression of this thread is that a lot of people in our contemporary society are lazy whiners.

My Mom had an old Smith-Corona typewriter. I had to use it for school papers because computers weren't yet available to students. The ribbon was black and red. There was no way to change the ribbon without getting ink all over yourself and the clean paper you were about to use for your assignment.

NCR (no carbon required) forms. Although carbon paper was a pain in the ass, NCR was just as bad. If you made a mistake, you had to use white on the first and all subsequent pages.

And on the topic of NCR forms, White-Out Correction Fluid itself. It was either too thin or too thick and wound up on your fingers for the entire day as it was hard to wash off.

I definitely don't miss manual typewriters.

And I don't miss having to wait until the "cheap time" to call people long distance. And mentally start a clock so we didn't talk too long and cost a fortune.

I don't miss having only three channels (plus PBS), and there being nothing on to watch.

I don't miss having to schedule my life around TV because if you missed an episode, you fucking missed it, and would be lucky to catch it on reruns someday.

Doing laundry by pounding it with rocks down by the river.

Welcome, DL founding member at r299!

Since being married-

Messy bottoms ruining my sheets. Having to pay for a date and not know if I’m getting laid. Paying full share of rent/mortgage.

@r283, "Of course you do, dear. "

Who the fuck are you, asshole?

My dad fucking me.

Well, not really.

I’m finding it hard to come up with things I don’t miss because there are SO many things from the past that I DO miss.

Earrings.

Caftans!

Urkel

I'll see your Urkel and raise you Kramer.

R164-I still pay ALL of my bills through the mail.

R298, Yet here we are in 2021, and all those missed shows are now available 24/7 on television and/or the computer!

I don’t miss cars. In the exurbs, they’re long boring rides through cornfields. In the suburbs, they’re reduced speed stop sign bullshit. In the city, they’re nightmares with parking issues wherever you go.

I don’t miss bagel, muffin, or cupcake shops.

I don’t miss commercials - although Youtube has re-introduced them.

R310, not ALL of them, sadly. "Northern Exposure" isn't available for streaming anywhere. Apparently there's an issue with the cost of licensing all the music, and no desire to go through the hassle of changing the music. So it remains unavailable.

And that's just one of a great many shows that aren't available, many unlikely to ever be.

I don't miss people talking on their cell phones in public. Yes, it still happens, sometimes on speaker phone, but texting has mitigated the talking out loud.

I don’t miss having to service old men for $$$

R314, I would love to read a thread if you will start it, talking about your exploits with the eldergays for pay.

My memory. At least I don't think I miss it.

Infanticide and backroom abortions.

R311 lives in a nursing home or is in prison.

Christian diet cult leader Gwen Shamblin Lara.

Sarah Palin on the news all the time.

Listening to the radio or watching MTV all day, so you could record your favourite song or video.

Bad TV, bad movies, and bad music