Ah, the ‘80s and ‘90s — a glorious time where our biggest stresses revolved around dodging pesky zits and making sure not to wear a fanny pack with a denim mini skirt. Nowadays, folks are swiping left or right like their love lives depend on it, but back in our day, we had simpler problems, like figuring out which cassette tape to blast from our Walkman without the notorious “eating” of the tape (sorry, New Kids on the Block, you deserved better).
Let’s take a moment to mourn the simplicity of VHS tapes. A labor of love, these glorious blocks of plastic came with a hefty risk: every time we fast-forwarded or rewound, it was like playing Russian roulette, praying you wouldn’t end up with a mangled mess that could put a horror movie to shame. And let’s not even get started on the time we accidentally recorded over our favorite episode of *Full House*. Joey’s brand of psychotic humor was simply not the same after that tragic moment. Yet, I must say, committing the entire Nickelodeon lineup to memory didn't hurt our mental faculties — they just hypothetically place us in a permanent game of “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” where the monsters are our adulthood.
Speaking of adulthood, can you believe we thought we’d be sipping lattes in our spacious homes, excessive Starbucks in hand? Instead, we find ourselves cramming into overpriced shoebox apartments, pondering how our big dreams got squished beneath the weight of student loans and avocado toast. Thanks, *Saved by the Bell*, for making high school seem like a cakewalk where we all wore acid-washed jeans and somehow had time to plan our entire futures among pranks and shaky friendships. When did our lives turn into a bizarre episode of *Choose Your Own Adventure*, but somehow, we always seem to land on the "Leftovers Again" path?
And those awkward teen years? I’d like to think they were like an episode of *Beetlejuice* where you never know when your cute crush will suddenly morph into a random, pasty kid wearing socks with sandals. We survived a timeline marked by awkward roller rink kisses, clunky cell phones that looked like they could double as an actual brick, and the universal struggle of writing love notes that were more like a cryptic quest for a slumber party invite. Every embarrassing moment only served to body slam our self-esteem into the depths of our JoJo hair bows. But hey, we persevered, and now we can laugh about it — even if it makes us want to dive into a tub of Cookie Puss ice cream and binge-watch *The X-Files* at 3 AM like the overgrown children we have become. Ah, nostalgia, you treacherous little rascal!