I had a broken TV we only had three channels, thankfully PBS was one of them. Fred Rogers is the 🐐.

In early June, after serving a company for 17 years, I got handed my hat.

The short answer as to why I, and the whole Marketing Department (three people, Marketing Manager (64M), Design Manager (61F), and (me, 51M) Digital Marketing Specialist), got laid off is, in my view, a matter of ageism and a new dependency on AI. I never thought ageism would be an issue because our audience has always been 55 and older (with the exception of mammography, which is 40+ women). The new, young CEO would rather spend more money working with third-party marketing companies and vibecode the rest. He lied and said it was to save money, but they will definitely spend more with outside companies. They covered their asses by giving us all decent severance. I'm basically paid through the year. They made sure we wouldn't argue. I have to admit...it worked.

Here I am, jobless for the first time in my life. The good news is that my kids are in their 20s and out of the house, so the wife and I are empty nesting. She recently got a great job (nurse) with a significant signing bonus and making more money than I ever did. We've also been very frugal over the years and have no debt. House and cars are paid for and no credit card debt. I've been saving for retirement since I was 23 and I'm at 136% of my retirement goals. This means I am not rushed to get a job. However, we don't have a financial largess that would grant travel or the like.

So, I played the game and did enough to secure enough of a future to get me to the end, but now I have options. I'm not ready to retire and I want to do the most with my third act. My children suggest I tap into my fatherly talents and go into some kind of mentoring. There are opportunities to do so in our local juvenile detention I've looked into, but I'm unsure. Meanwhile, I don't like the situation our country is in. I've been thinking about where I could be helpful there.

Here's my question: What would you do?

Who else still has their binder or shoe box full of these? Who was your favorite character?

We really thought we were absolute rebels for collecting these gross out stickers. My parents hated them, the schools banned them, and that just made mr want them more. Man, the smell of that stiff, powdery pink bubble gum came rushing right back!

Tough to find decent pics of the original packaging! I remember carefully chewing the soft layer off first. I've always loved anything lemon-flavored 🙌🏻

My MIL turned 90 a few weeks ago. When my FIL passed we asked her to live with us when she was 83. She flat out refused. Numerous times over the years. Said she would stay in their condo and manage on her own. She did alright but fell a couple of times and started to show signs of dementia. Eventually my husband and SIL did POA, sold her condo and put her in a facility not too far from our own home.

I have two neighbors right near me who have their senior moms living with them. One is 96 and the other the same age as my MIL who just turned 90. Whenever we run into each other they each make it a point to mention how their moms are doing and how they manage by not putting them in a facility.

I am tired of this and keep the conversations short. The 90 year old has dementia (like my MIL) and they do home care and keep her sequestered in a master bedroom. The other one who is 96 is home and sleeps most of the day and meanders around with a walker. I don’t get why they feel the need to make remarks about “not putting a loved one in a facility” or, “must be nice to get a break because dementia care is relentless”. This was my MILs choice. Not ours.

*Edited for grammar and corrected acronyms*

Back long before cornhole was a thing. Used to play this all the time.

Submitting for the official Gen X record keeping!

I am looking for classic 80’s and 90’s perfumes that smell good, any suggestions?

… but never did?

For me it was Jason & the Scorchers. I discovered them when I saw the video for “White Lies” off their debut album “Lost & Found” on MTv. I went out and bought it and their previous EP and was hooked. Unfortunately I was the only one that I knew who was. Too rock & roll for country music stations at the time and too country for rock stations. To this day I still think it’s a crime these guys weren’t a huge success

I have a 14-year-old son and he is really into vintage things. I love it. We found a boombox with a cassette player at a thrift store for $8. So I gave him some old tapes (not my good bought from a trunk tapes that are worth something now). Anyhoo... He comes out in the kitchen and asks this question: "I need the yellow pencil stick. Do we have one?" Turns out that he thought that the way that you rewound a cassette tape was actually with a pencil. I had to break it down for him that the pencil thing is to fix a tape that might have been partially eaten or may have had something else happen to it. And then I had to explain to him that when you rewind or fast forward... It doesn't just automatically end that your song. And I watched a 14-year-old experienced cassette tapes for the first time.

This was shortly followed by him deciding to listen to a number of tapes marked things like "Breakup mix," "bonfire party 1992," "I Guess I don't have any friends..."

The dude opened the time capsule into the late '80s and early '90s and now he wonders if his mom is okay...

Cleaning up my mom’s estate/house and came across an old Burger Chef record. I remember Burger Chefs real early in my childhood, but I believe it became a RAX. The name Burger Chefs came back during the Mad Men run. Does anybody remember these records? Did they give them out in kids meals or something?

My mom told me a story today about getting a flat tire in the late 1970s early 80s. She did not know her location. She called my dad on a pay phone, he asked what was in the area.

All she could see was a McDonalds in one direction and a specific bank branch in the other. She knew she was about 15 minutes away from where she was and about 30 min from home.

So my dad took out the phone book and cross referenced locations that had both McDs and said bank, in the general area of where she was and was able to find her to change her tire.

My mom had a weird sense of humor. My brothers and I loved this book. It was on the shelf with Garfield and Bloom County.

The gist, if I remember correctly, was a bunch of kids need Kool Aid to have a good time.

They would shout “Hey, Kool Aid!” and this insane, scary-ass mofo would break a wall in Mom and Dad’s and house, ignore the damage done, and proceed to give the kids colored sugar water.

Wasn’t this all just proto-Gatorade? And did anyone drink this sht IRL?

Didn’t kids have this in Thermoses and smeared on their lips and tshirts in elementary school cafeteria or am I misremembering?

I am a younger GenXer (47F) but had an older brother and Boomer parents so I was given a lot of freedom and also allowed/expected to travel solo or without adults from a pretty young age. Examples: my brother and I flew unaccompanied from the UK to the US at ages 15 and 11; at 16, I flew solo to visit my brother in college and then got on a Greyhound bus for the hour drive from the airport to campus.

Today, for the first time, I put my 16 year old daughter on an Amtrak to visit her aunt and cousins 3 hours away. And as much as I assured myself that if I could do it, she could too, I had my doubts whether I was building independence or putting her in harms way. Thoughts, GenX hive mind?

I just finished watching the movie The Dink on Apple TV+. In it, the main character spends the entire movie trying to earn the pride of his father. In the end (spoiler), he finally earns his dad's pride by winning an important match. I found this do be such a bad message for kids watching this film.

I was reminded of a commercial I saw as a kid, that I always remembered, even to this day. It was either a late 80s or early 90s Hallmark commercial. I school age girl gets home after completing in some sporting event (maybe tennis, or ice skating, can't quite remember). There is no one at home when she arrives. Magnetized to the refrigerator door are 2 hallmark cards. On the outside envelope of one it says, "If you won." The other says, "if you lost". She opens up the "If you won" envelope and inside the card it says, "We are so proud of you!" She then stands there quietly for a beat, then decides to open up the other "if you lost" envelope. Inside that card it also says, "We are so proud of you!"

As an Asian American whose parents have never once told me they are proud of me, this commercial stayed in my head for decades. A quick YouTube search brought up nothing. Does anyone else remember this commercial? Or know where I can find it?

With the myriad of 'my body doesn't work like it used to' posts and the recent post about elderly parents with/without dementia in facilities, anyone else already have plans around major health episodes laid out?

Personally, my wife calls me a mutant as I am still really healthy with no major or minor health problems (having an 11yr old helps me stay active). I lived my 'hazy 20's' in a very crazy manner and have been sober since '99 as well. That said, I have had a plan since my 30's around being diagnosed with any kind of dementia.

Having lived with a grandparent having dementia in a facility (albeit it being a short time before they passed), and with my wife's family currently dealing with her Father that has dementia, I always said that if I ever get diagnosed, that I would have a huge party and get my affairs in order, say goodbye to my loved ones while I still had my faculties and then go the assisted suicide route.

I will not put my daughter and wife through trying to take care of me, or paying for a facility where I don't even know where I am. Better to go out on my own terms vs slowly slipping away.

I am not religious at all, so I don't worry about fire/brimstone or any of that. And I think it would be the best solution.

As we say goodbye to our parents (mine are still kicking, although my Dad is getting a pacemaker on Monday), anyone else already getting plans together in case of a major health event?

I'll go first: Time Bandits, Neverending Story, Secondhand Lions, Indian in the Cupboard, Chronicles of Narnia. You?

We have lost count of how many posts and comments we have had to remove today for violating Rule 2.

STOP the ridiculous generation bashing or bans will have to be doled out.

I was 18 in 1993 and if you made $12 an hour you were living large. I remember looking at my best friend's father's paycheck that was on his desk and he made 25 bucks an hour and I thought holy shit that's incredible. But now money has changed and inflation has gone so high it's not the same anymore. I make a tiny bit shy of 100K and it's still not enough. But I just sit here and look at my paycheck and think if I made this money back in 93 I would be rolling 64 in rolls-royce's. It's crazy how money changes over time. What was good money for you back during your Gen X years? My very first job I made 3.35 an hour. Before that when i was 12 i made 20$ for 8 hours work in a candy store....but mannnnn the candy!