“And hoping the DJ didn’t talk over the end of it.” —phoebe64 “Nearly 30 years later, whenever I hear “Dreams” by The Cranberries, I still half expect a DJ to cut in to the end with his horrible yodeling, because that’s what happened on the recording I ended up making.” —qtjedigrl “To hell with the latest, newest cellphone being a status symbol. The real indicator of privilege and the envy of peers was having your own phone line in your bedroom! Usually as a result of your parents getting pissed off at either missing calls or being your answering service when all your friends called.” —we-feed-the-fire “Oooh!!! The anticipation!!!! I can feel it!!! Seconds ticking by, hand hovering over the receiver! One tiny blip of a bell, SNATCH!!! And somehow out of breath from all that anxiety when you said ‘hello.’ Good times!” —Nonsensical07 “I have fond memories of calling the party line! But sometimes, my friend wouldn’t call on time, and I listened to the same loop for 15 minutes while getting a cramp in my neck from holding the receiver. Good times.” —booksandchaos “The internet was something you had to sit down behind a terminal to access. It required a time slot where you wouldn’t be interrupted. It was never spontaneous and more or less had to be planned. Social media didn’t really take off until smartphones became normalized (around 2010) and the internet was more widely available. It also took bandwidth increasing and becoming segregated from the landline before we got anything close to video streaming as it exists today.” —Hanflander “My dad has a Sports Illustrated subscription as a result of a school fundraiser I had. Don’t know if he was expecting it, but his swimsuit edition ~remarkably~ never showed up.” —drugsondrugs “Remember when a big movie would play on TV for the first time? It was an event! You knew a month ahead of time where and when to be, and thats what your plans were: make snacks and be ready on the couch by 7:00 p.m. so you could FINALLY watch the movie!!” —Nonsensical07 “I read a lot. It bothers me that my attention span isn’t what it used to be. I can’t seem to stay focused on books now.” —madcats323 “Yeah, same. I sit around all the time and have the feeling I don’t really want to do anything, even though I could do anything.” —royalewithcheese51
