You know you're GenX if…

What'd I miss?

Please enjoy this brief interlude to regular AGING with STRENGTH programming for a quick ten-speed-bike ride down memory lane.

You know you’re GenX if….

• You still use the word Rolodex.

• You remember when everyone carried suitcases.

• You've gone to a drugstore to develop photographs.

• You or a friend owned a car with a choke.

• You remember playing Pong without irony.

• You can write a check and address an envelope without asking for help.

• You used hydrogen peroxide as a hair product….

• ….and also had a perm.

• You had a high school classmate who wrote a story in English class about a kid who shoots up a school, and it wasn't a big deal.

• Your grandmother referred to phone numbers with mnemonics like "Springfield 26873."

• You were a teenager when mountain bikes were invented.

• You know who Bob Barker and Peter Jennings are.

• You watched “Thunderbirds” on a television set.

• You used rabbit ears on that same TV set.

• You understand old peoples’ references to Rudolph Valentino.

shout out to @yamanashiliving123 for this one.

• You and your friends walked to elementary school without parents.

• You remember seeing a middle-aged colleague brushing his teeth after lunch in the office bathroom and thinking, “Weirdo.”

• You grew up with toys actually made from wood, like in the Christmas cartoons.

• You know what “Breaker 1-9” means and remember the chorus to “Convoy.”

• You would have killed to own a Trans-Am with an eagle on the hood.

• Some small part of you still feels a little bad walking down the sidewalk staring at your phone.

• “Queer” still feels like a slur, but you have fond memories of playing "smear the queer."

• You had a friend who thought Sabrina was the hottest Charlie’s Angel.

• ”OP" stood for an aspirational brand of surf wear, not the person who starts an internet thread.

• You paid your high school classmate 50 bucks and a case of beer to tune up your car engine. And he could.

• Your mom had no idea where you were for hours at a time, when you were 7.

• You've heard an actual dial tone through a telephone handset.

• You know what Starsky shoes are and why they were cool.

• “588-2300" and “867-5309” still make you involuntarily break into song.

• You brought peanuts in your school lunch and didn’t get in trouble.

• You remember when microwave ovens and Teflon hit the market.

• You remember curbs littered with soda can pull tabs.

• “Canon,” “Barnaby Jones,” “Ironside” and “McCloud” seemed like plausible TV crime dramas.

• You miss the smell of burning leaves in October.

• You can name four or more Patrick Swayze movies off the top of your head.

• You had a mullet and it was cool.

• Fanny packs and Rollerblades. ‘Nuff said.

• Ricky Schroeder, Barbara Eden, Heather Locklear and Spicoli meant something to you.

• You’ve owned a phonebook.

• The overhead music at the grocery store is from your 20s.

• Your first car would be worth more now than when you bought it.

• You remember the euphoria of finding a $10 bill.

• You've seen a movie at drive-in theater.

• You've read porn.

• You know what “flash cubes” are.

• Your parents owned a VW camper because it was affordable.

• You’ve eaten a “tv dinner” for dinner.

• You had a drawer just for leg warmers.

• You learned to tell time on an analog clock before you were a teenager.

• You owned a pager.

• You’ve seen Earth, Wind & Fire.

• Lean Cuisine was considered health food.

• You’ve stretched a phone cord into another room, for privacy.

• You know what “Ma Bell” and the “Baby Bells” were.

• You’d rather go back to answering machines.

• You’ve chased a mosquito fogger on your bike, to your parents’ amusement.

• You wish college kids weren’t such wusses.

• You wanted to be on “The Gong Show.”

• You know Lynda Carter spells her name with a y.

• You remember gas prices advertised in cents.

• You never questioned why Dick Van Dyke and his TV wife Laura slept in separate beds.

• You weren’t sure, when smoking in bars and restaurants was banned, whether it was a good idea.

• Your first email address was on AOL.

• You or one of your friends owned an 8-track.

• You remember where you were the first time you heard “My Sharona.”

• “Jane you ignorant slut” still makes you laugh, but you’re slightly offended when people say “fuck” on Zoom.

What did I miss? Leave a comment!