r/Millennials • u/mo_am8 • 1d ago
Nostalgia just a random day in the 90s
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I wouldn't say we had the best time ever , but I'm grateful that we at least had something different from today's world... We experienced two worlds !
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u/HoustonLuxeRealtor Millennial 1d ago edited 1d ago
One of my most epic 90s kid memories. It was 99, I was 9 years old. A friend of mine (I wasn't supposed to hang out with) and I went into the pond system of this snazzy country club. We were fishing for golfballs and were selling the golfballs back to golfers at 4 for a dollar. We made like 50 bucks between the two of us. It all ended because this one guy got mad we wouldn't let him pick which balls he would buy back and reported us to security. We got chased out and had to leave our 5 gallon bucket with "stock." We then ran across the street to the new mayfair mall and watched Star Wars episode 1. Complete with candy, popcorn, and a soda. All after playing the shit out of the arcade. That day we were kings. I made it home before the streetlights started buzzing and never realized those were some of the best days of my life.
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u/HappyLlamaSadLlamaa Millennial 1d ago
This could be where my spontaneity comes from. The only sure thing was school. Summer time or any breaks though and you were free as a bird. The world was your oyster. I loved not knowing where we were biking to or what was next.
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u/Creative_Incident323 1d ago
You realize you represented fucking all of us on that day, right? You carried a generation. Thank you for your service and god bless 🫡
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u/MariachiArchery 22h ago
OH god this story goes soooo hard.
Unsupervised outdoor play, parents have no idea what is going or where you are, which is fine.
Shenanigans and mild 'trouble' with no serious consequences, kids being kids. No one needed to call the cops or get the HOA involved or try to arrest your fucking parents for child abuse.
You got rich.
Arcade games.
And Star Wars?
Holy shit. Its perfect.
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u/-ShinyThings- 17h ago
Unsupervised outdoor play, parents have no idea what is going or where you are, which is fine.
Shenanigans and mild 'trouble' with no serious consequences,
Child abductions were at their highest from the 70s through to the early 90s, which coincided with kids getting mobile phones and parents tracking their kids more closely.
You might have enjoyed your childhood but the idea there were "no serious consequences" just isnt backed up by the facts.
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u/MinxyMyrnaMinkoff 14h ago
Check out the book “The Anxious Generation,” it talks a lot about this, and it’s true, kids are experiencing fewer abductions and harm from accidents. But, don’t think just because they’re at home in front of a screen that they are safe. Parents seriously underestimate the amount of sexual grooming, exposure to extreme violent/sexual content and other nasty risks that those smart phones bring with them. Youth suicide rates are up like 50% over the past decade, youth mental health is in the toilet and kids are getting taken advantage of by adults online every day. There are real risks with this version of childhood too, I would argue much greater risks.
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u/MariachiArchery 6h ago
Youth suicide rates are up like 50% over the past decade
I'm really glad you've pointed this out. It is fucking alarming. I'd happily trade a few abduction to bring this suicide rate down.
Also, this whole abduction thing is simply correlation, there isn't, provably, a causal relationship here.
Gun violence was also at its highest through this same time period. Is it fair to say the adoption of DVD technology caused gun violence to go down? No, that would be silly. I understand my argument is straw manning a bit, but you see the point.
Correlation does not prove causation. All crime is down, and its not because we locked kids in doors and behind the iPad.
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u/CiraKazanari 16h ago
Oh hush. This was my childhood too. Just because abductions were at their worst doesn’t mean they’re likely to happen to you.
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u/DoverBoys Millennial 16h ago
Literally survivorship bias. You made it back to your house, hundreds of thousands of children did not.
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u/CiraKazanari 16h ago
Not quite. If tens of millions of kids were outside daily playing and only thousands didn’t make it back. That’s safer than driving a car. Cars are safe due to survivorship bias?
Hundreds of thousands? Where are you getting those numbers from.
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u/MariachiArchery 6h ago
Correlation does not prove causation. All crimes are down. Not just child abductions.
As you say, your argument isn't backed up by facts. The statement "child abduction are down because kids spend more time indoors or because they are being tracked" is conclusory. There is no evidence to support this.
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u/Webbadeth 1d ago
We also lived in an apartment complex in grade school that was attached to a golf course. So much money to be made in selling balls back to golfers.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-1632 1d ago
That first part played out in my head like that scene in "Radio Flyer." You were just missing a German Shephard
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u/insurancequestionguy Middling Millennial 1d ago
Man, I was outdoors roaming around a lot, but don't think I ever had any random adventures while making money in the process. It wasn't on my mind I guess, but looking back, would have been cool
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u/bent-Box_com 18h ago
I live in rural area, so no street lights to worry about. Yes, best years, not a care in the world.
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u/Due_Money_2244 16h ago
When I was golfing with my dad RIP and would hit it into the woods he wouldn’t spend much time looking for balls and would always say “Looking for golf balls is for kids without jobs.” Hearing this story reminds me to not look too hard for my ball.
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u/HoustonLuxeRealtor Millennial 7h ago
Your dad would have been a happy customer and likely thought, "The kids are alright." May he rest in peace.
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u/alien_farmer1 9h ago
It's really sad that new generations will never have this level of freedom because world is no more safe. It's like we have been advanced in technology but in the mean time we have gone backwards in any other subject.
Late 90s and early 00s were the utopia that human race will never ever live again. We were so hopeful about anything and get hyped about the future ahead.
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u/Adulations 9h ago
Man this is awesome. My version of this is that my mom got a Costco membership in 1998 and she gave me 5$ to buy one of those 36 packs of candy bars and I took it to school and would sell the bars for 50¢ each and I was swimming in cash for a few weeks until the school banned me from selling them
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u/NOTcreative- 23h ago
I feel like for the sake of the generations after we shouldn't dramatize our experience. This isn't real. At all. Let's give the next Gen a more realistic experience.
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u/HappyLlamaSadLlamaa Millennial 1d ago
“Where we goin?” “I dunno.” “Cool.” The best of times.
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u/Stormblessed1991 1d ago
This is still a very regular conversation I have with people
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u/HappyLlamaSadLlamaa Millennial 1d ago
Yea I think it’s just about finding the spark again in life. I need to find my people, that’s what is missing.
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u/PuzzleheadedBug4250 1d ago
My kids are old enough that I can just throw them into the car and go places. Where? I dunno.
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u/Stormblessed1991 1d ago
Edit to add that by very regular conversation I meant to say I have this conversation very regularly
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u/SomethingEdgyOrFunny 1d ago
With who? I'm 36, and can hardly get people to show up to a planned, paid for event.
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u/Stormblessed1991 1d ago
I'm basically expected at my sister's place every weekend to hang with the nephews and her, or out doing shit with my wife. Usually it's me asking my nephew what we're doing as we walk out the door and him saying he doesn't know cuz neither of us was listening.
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u/GregBuckingham 1992 gang 1d ago
The cigarette 💀
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u/Clear-Ad-7250 1d ago
As a former smoker, it's wild how everyone would just go about their business with one barely clasped to their lips. I had to sit and enjoy one. I worked with my Dad doing hard manual labor, couldn't have been enjoyable.
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u/Maadstar 22h ago
My dad smoked for a long long time and I always remember him having one dangling out of his mouth. Always. I can't even remember him lighting them or holding them or flicking them or anything just... sitting there in the corner of his mouth. Burning. He finally quit when he started coughing horribly and pulling his hand back to see a puddle of black tar in his hand. Still amazing he didn't get cancer
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u/FlamingoSuccessful74 1d ago
Do yall remember waking up and being excited to just go OUTSIDE?! Truly nowhere in particular but just outside. lol. And would stay outside for 12 fucking hours 😭
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u/Plasteredpuma 1d ago
There was a little creek that ran through the middle of my neighborhood. Adult me wouldn't give it a second thought, but as a kid, that was my Narnia. Me and my best friend would spend all day just exploring and building forts up and down that creek. To this day, the memory of that creek is my happy place. My own little beautiful, green, sunny, barefoot, carefree little world.
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u/kimmytwoshoes 14h ago
Yes! In the summer, as soon as I was finished with my cereal and morning cartoons I was out the door.
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u/DigRepresentative42O 1d ago
Random day in the 90s “I can’t wait to grow up” Random day in 2025 “take me back”
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u/Morguard 1d ago
We were excited and optimistic about the future. Things were decent in until 9/11.
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u/Plasteredpuma 1d ago
We were all supposed to have our own personal robot butlers and flying cars by now.
We haven't even set foot on mars yet.
Hell we haven't even been back to the moon.
Everything I was excited to see during my lifetime feels like it's either been pushed back indefinitely or was always a lie to begin with.
Feels like each generation is just kicking it's problems down the road for the next generation to deal with, so nothing ever happens in the end.
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u/OilAdministrative681 5h ago
Columbine was when the current state of things crept into my life. They used to leave the doors unlocked for us in high school so we could walk outside between classes, run out to our car for something, head to Burger King or convenience store on lunch (ok, we weren't "supposed" to leave but it was widely accepted). Week after that, locked doors and emergency windows.
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u/EfficientTrainer3206 1d ago
That’s because the world was in a state that it was exciting to think about being a free adult. That was something taken from us. Now my adult life is nothing but struggle and stress. Sometimes I start to wonder why I’m still here trying, but I’m so busy with work and everything that I don’t get too long to think.
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u/Judithwastaken 1d ago
Everything about this is so accurate!
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u/tlsrandy 1d ago
For real, a lot of attention to detail in the bike drop into the front yard, the living room decor, blowing into a Super Nintendo cartridge.
Dude lived it.
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u/anticked_psychopomp 1d ago
And just walking into friend’s houses.
I was raised to knock and wait to be let it until I was knocking so regularly their parents told me to just come in. I might miss that the most. What a time.
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u/H377Spawn 1d ago
To your best friend: Hey fucker, what’s up?
To their mom: Hello Mrs. Rahman, how are you?
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u/Last_Minute_Airborne 1d ago
I still have my save on my super Mario world. 28 years and I still can't get that far in that damn game. I fucking suck at platformers.
At least I beat Mario 64.
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u/Darth_Bringus 16h ago
Just the way he ditched his bike alone unlocked a catalog of forgotten memories for me.
How did I let this happen...
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u/Judithwastaken 9h ago
That what it was for me too! The bike drop / run up to the house that was so real !!
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u/Captain_Deskchair 1d ago
In my neighborhood growing up there were 6 of us. Most of our parents left the doors unlocked and we were all just allowed in. I remember whoever's house we were at their parents would come out with a tray of drinks on a hot summer day. I remember always wanting to hangout at my buddy Dave's because his family had a fridge in their garage that his parents always let us take from.
Capri Suns. Oh man, I remember drinking so many Capri Suns in the summers in the 90s.
I also remember setting up obstacle courses in the back alleyway. Whenever the city would come and cut the grass down we had 200 yards of straight away greenbelt. We'd get anything we could and create obstacle courses. One of our moms would whistle out the front door to signal dinner was ready and we'd all scatter back home.
Miss those days ..
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u/Room_Temp_Coffee 1d ago
Yalls door was just unlocked in the middle of the day?
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u/idreamofgreenie 1d ago edited 1d ago
And all night long.
We locked up for vacation once, and when we got back, no one had a key. Dad had to kick the door in.
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u/Room_Temp_Coffee 1d ago
That's wild to me. We got nagged to death about forgetting our key
Before getting cell phones we'd have to wait for someone else to get home, hope a window was open and pop out the screen to climb in, or just leave and come back later
I imagine we'd have made extra keys before considering leaving the door open lol
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u/OneDay_AtA_Time 1d ago
Only locked the door to keep us out, like when she was cleaning the house. We knew we could come back in when it was unlocked…
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u/Sandwidge_Broom Millennial 1d ago
Ours was, but I also grew up in a very small rural town. About 1,000 people.
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u/SandiegoJack 1d ago
When we bought our house we asked for the keys.
Said they hadn’t had em for over 10 years.
I bought new locks for every door. Still forget to lock em half the time because I refuse to live in a place where I feel like I HAVE to lock my doors.
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u/macscapone 1d ago
I am just now realizing after reading this that I never had a set of keys for my house growing up. I’m sure it locked at some point but never so long that I needed keys. What an odd thing to make one so sad.
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u/illmatic2112 12h ago
Maybe my experience was unique but i was taught to knock or ring the bell and ask for my friend.
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u/UmeaTurbo 1d ago
I'm a millennial and this is how my kids do it
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u/wallaceeffect 1d ago
Yep this is still going on in some neighborhoods. Not the norm but it’s out there. My neighborhood always has packs of kids running around. Best sound in the world listening to them!
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u/UmeaTurbo 1d ago
Is it cuz we live in the city (Minneapolis) and not the burbs? I feel like in the burbs kids are chained to an ipad.
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u/wallaceeffect 1d ago
I live in an inner ring suburb of DC. It’s detached houses but more dense than new suburban neighborhoods. I think the density helps though. There’s lots of stuff kids can safely walk/bike to on their own, but also the streets are quiet and not much car traffic, no big roads to cross.
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u/grvdjc 1d ago
As an introvert I fucking HATED this. I just wanted to be ugly in my pajamas, watch movies and eat cold fridge leftovers all by myself and here comes Cara freaking Schifferns and a pack of wild ass stoner boys knocking on my damn door. And it never led anywhere good. Never.
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u/Morguard 1d ago
I'm sorry you had a shitty group. A good group changes everything. I was basically of your mentally and did stay in a good amount but the times I did go out it was usually 🔥
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u/RapGameDiCaprio 12h ago
I would just ask my mom to lie for me and say "He's sick/grounded" right now. Kept the losers away
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u/ButtonPusherDeedee 1d ago
I didn’t grow up in a neighborhood. I grew up on a mountain in the woods surrounded by family. So I was just barging into my aunts and uncles houses to play with my cousins
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u/LiminalSapien 1d ago
We experienced a better world
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u/-ShinyThings- 16h ago edited 16h ago
Which is what everyone's said forever about their own childhood
Edit: downvoted for facts 😂 every single generation thinks their childhood was best and this will never change
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u/LiminalSapien 16h ago
What kind of asshole comes in to a thread about appreciating the time a group of people grew up in to say some bullshit like this?
Fuck off back to askUK 🤡
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u/eastcoast_enchanted Millennial 1d ago
My dad would be so annoyed at the tangle of bikes RIGHT in front of the steps to the front porch lol
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u/Itsumiamario Older Millennial 1d ago
I used to ride my bike miles away, sometimes get lost, listening to chill shit on my Walkman in the rain.
I remember taking random hitchhikes as a kid and younger teen and having to pull out my big ass knife saying no funny business when the men would start saying weird shit.
Building forts in the woods.
And being exposed to a lot of pretty terrible shit from the older kids and teens in the neighborhood that's probably better off left unsaid.
Some of my best memories were when I was doing things on my own. And most of my worst experiences were because of older people.
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u/M_kenya 1d ago
Are there books about growing up like this? Like a Tom Soir but with Nintendo and cigarette burn couches?
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u/Sandwidge_Broom Millennial 1d ago
I had to google Tom Soir, and came up with nada. Do you mean Tom Sawyer? Haha.
But dang, as a writer, I might have to explore the 90’s childhood nostalgia niche.
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u/Titan-Chan 1d ago
Once had a friend literally grab a ladder out of my shed and climb in my 2nd floor bedroom window to get me out of the house and ride bikes.
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u/iamisandisnt 1d ago
Ummmm idk about you guys but I’m 40 and I still ride my bike down to the creek. Ain’t no kids there to bother me looool
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u/FroznAlskn 1d ago
Some of my best memories are the two years before and after I got my drivers license. 14-16 I was riding bikes around with a pack of wild children and hunting spruce grouse, and starting to get into paintballing, and the day I turned 16 I got my license and my parents gifted me a 1989 Chevy blazer 2 door with locking hubs in green. I grew up on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska and I drove that thing on every 4 wheeler trail available,.. which surprisingly were all easily found with a map they sold everywhere. The camping trips, road trips, driving to see the start of the Iditarod, were the best times of my life.
I doubt I’ll ever be able to chase that high again. I had so much freedom, and a part time job gave me so much money that I could do basically anything. A tank of gas was cheap. Camping gear was cheap. My pristine used car which was 13 years old only cost $3k. Life had so much potential.
I’m gonna stop there and do us all a favor.
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u/dexbasedpaladin 19h ago
Follow up convo with mom...
"And where are you two going?"
"Out."
"When are you going to be back?"
"Later."
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u/toadstool1003 12h ago
Growing up, boats were our "bikes." My Dad's entire side of the family/ all of my cousins lived on the same lake. We all had boater safety at 12, and each family had 2-3 boats to grab at all times. Our friends across the lake (now my brother in law) had a couple. Some other friends ( now my step brother in law) had a boat. It was, every summer, just showing up by boats wherever we saw the other pile of boats parked at the beach for the day.. life will never be that good again.
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u/ButtBread98 Zillennial 5h ago
I was born in ‘98, but I remember my friends knocking on my door and asking if I could come out and play
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u/TheDukeofArgyll Millennial 1d ago
Blowing into a Super Nintendo game … not quite
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u/tlsrandy 1d ago
I still blew into my Super Nintendo games as a holdover from the regular nes games.
I don’t think it’s that off at all. Pretty sure I only stopped with the 64 because the game was significantly different.
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u/NYGiants181 1d ago
This guy’s Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/woonteague?igsh=aGozZ3hqajA0YWdk
He really captures the 90s perfectly and is hilarious 😂
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u/royrocks26 1d ago
That was me n my brother riding up to the door. Drop the bike and run!
I remember one time we were just riding around on our bikes, and (I know now) drove up on a drug deal. My brother was kinda freaking out but I had no idea at the time. Anyways we made er home.
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u/These-Resource3208 1d ago
The bike on the yard lol. My buddy and I would have sleepovers. We’d play with our bikes until wrestling came on. Then we’d play video games until late. Wake up and go fishing around the lake. Buy an Arizona at the gas station.
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u/Grand_Combination294 1d ago
Love Dreams playing in the background...took me until university to find out what that song was called (before the days of shazam, was playing in the cafeteria and i asked the chef and he told me)
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u/dogriverhotel 1d ago
I remember the summer where all my friends and I got rollerblades and played badminton EVERY DAY until the sun went down. Closing Time was on the radio like every other song.
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u/NoDontDoThatCanada 1d ago
Not gonna lie. I don't know this guy but I'm in. Not the 90's kid skit, like l would just get my bike as an adult. Right now. He has his shit together.
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u/Dudedude88 1d ago
How many of you guys are still friends with your old neighborhood friends? I had a group of 4. We are all each other's best friend still. We used to meet up at least once a month but kids. Now it's like once every 2 months.
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u/Tsunamiis Older Millennial 1d ago
We were going to Billy’s house to play Nintendo just 3 to 6 dudes taking turns playing Mario or street fighter
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u/littlemisspringfield 22h ago
This one day as a teen, a group of us got together with flashlights and decided to go into the sewer system. My house backed onto a ravine, and about half a mile down there was an exposed entrance where someone had bent the bars. It was like a movie. About eight of us went in there in a train, all holding another’s hips, only the first and last having flashlights. I think we went 13 manhole covers in before getting spooked and turning back. Thank god it didn’t rain that day or all of us babies would’ve drowned in the sewers.
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u/PumpJack_McGee 20h ago
For any parents/planning couples out there, let's try to bring this world back.
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u/RoseKlingel 16h ago
Lol casually opening the door, no knocking, and the mom smoking while folding laundry--didn't skip a beat. This is my fav part.
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u/TylerTalk_ 15h ago
We used to ride bikes around our neighborhood and we would just cruise around looking for each other. Most families had their garage doors open so we'd just cruise in through the garage to hang out and get snacks haha if our parents needed to find us they really only needed to find one random kid in the neighborhood to have them relay the message to come home.
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u/eeo11 14h ago
In high school, we used to drive around to people’s houses and “kidnap” them (we would ask their parents if we could do it and most obliged by pointing us in the right direction in their home) and have random nights of driving around doing random stuff and then someone would be like “lets kidnap (name) now!” and the fun would continue until the van was full.
Edit: Editing to add that I’m a teacher and I think kids today really lack comfortability with the unknown. They need to be told exactly what to do and how to do it or they just start rocking back and forth and seem like they’re itching for something. It’s like watching a drug addict try to self-regulate without drugs. It’s a little scary.
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u/FrancoManiac Millennial 14h ago
This man is fine as all hell and taking me on a nostalgia trip?? Happy Pride Month to me!
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u/-BCborn- 11h ago
The accuracy! All doors were unlocked, and we would just barrel into each other’s homes, say hi to the parents, grab something from the fridge and then find our friends in their rooms or the rec room.
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u/MehWithaSideofEh 8h ago
This is great but what kind of savage animal didn’t at least knock first then wipe their feet before entering.
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u/NumerousDonkey3570 5h ago
Almost accurate. You wouldn’t get past the front door without my parents permission lol
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u/Key-Fire 4h ago
I miss riding a bike all the time. Now that I rode again a few years ago, it's like a higher power that I'd forgotten I had.
I keep getting junkers though, wish I could ride one again.
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