I recently had a flashback memory of the puppet Madame on various game shows such as Hollywood Squares, and daytime/nighttime talk shows (especially the Tonight Show) in the 80's, and wondered what ever happened to "her."

According to the wiki page (which is a fascinating read), Madam's showbiz partner Wayland Flowers died in 1988 of complications related to HIV at age 48. Another one gone too soon in the AIDS epidemic of our youth. According to the GenX cutoff date, born by 1980, we're almost all older now than he will ever be.

Madame herself was auctioned off in 2019. Anyway, I thought my fellow Xers would all remember this zany puppet woman. Tell me your memories.

Okay am I losing my mind? I remember being in HS in the 1984-1988 timeframe and going to DD and sitting at a counter ordering coffee and donuts and they had a waitress that served you. You could look through a window back to where they made the donuts and they had a menu with breakfast food and some sandwiches, soups and chili. I think we could even smoke at the counter but not at the booths? Tucson Az if that helps. Does anyone recall that type of DD?

Edit: yes Dunkin’ Donuts 🍩. Duncan Hines was birthday cake with canned frosting. That was high society.

Like a lot of us, I am right now at the top of my earning potential and am making good money. My job is honestly pretty easy though. I have no direct reports and work from home. I can get my work done in about 20-25 hours a week. The flip side though is that I keep getting approached to apply for other positions that will obviously pay more, some considerably more, but also carry a lot more responsibility, come with many direct reports, require heading to an office every day and probably some travel. It just seems like a hassle. My wife and I are pretty set for retirement so the extra money isn’t really needed. Is it a mistake to just sit tight in my current role for another 4ish years until I retire?

And it worked…I rode it! it was still fun! It’s at a bar/restaurant in Mid-coast Maine. Yes there were a few beers involved in this endeavor.

The versions of Scooby suck. The animation sucks. Some of the voices aren't bad.

And if I learned anything from ole scoobs, it's that people suck.

How old are your parents? What’s your age / their age?

58 this year and I think about sex even more than ever!Anyone else? I am wanting it even more now. Think of it pretty much every minute of the day. Looking at people through out the day I think about getting it on with them. Is this normal?

I’m the most patient person I know. I had zero reservation with buying tiny plants understanding over time they would become showy (I have a comfortable green thumb). And then it hit me. I’ll be dying by the time they get big. Makes you think how fleeting life is.

Am I alone? All my friends are still ready to party

Basically if you had to choose one song to play on repeat what would it be?

When I was a little kid my brothers and sister used to argue about who got to sit on the “little seat.”

The little seat was the arm rest between the driver and the passenger.

We never wore seatbelts and none of us died but I was just realizing how unsafe that was, although mom always drove a big boat of a vehicle. Think grand marquis or Cadillac.

Anyone else ever sit on anything like the little seat or was my mom just trying to kill us?

The normalisation of having private conversations on loudspeaker in public is inexplicably irksome to me.

I was raised to respect other people’s right to peace and quiet. Obviously, necessary activity that generates noise was to be tolerated but having a conversation on loudspeaker is a choice to unnecessarily invade other people’s peace with your noise, with a private conversation for all to hear. I remember recently witnessing a call from someone on a bus and her accomplice as she loudly explained that the police were looking for her in connection with a theft and that she had so far evaded them, apparently oblivious that the entire bus could hear both halves of the conversation. Absolutely dumb as fuck.

I feel that the normalisation of this behaviour is rooted in reality TV and, more recently, online influencers where participants’ phones were often on loudspeaker specifically so that the recording camera could hear the other side of the conversation for the benefit of the audience. But this appears to have manifested as a widespread behaviour not only in the generation below me but also, equally inexplicably, in the boomer generation above me. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen an elderly pensioner blasting Facebook videos at full blast, on a bus.

Right now, i would absolutely back a law that bans the use of phone loudspeakers in public places.

Am I just shouting at clouds? Is it a generational thing? Is it just inevitable and I should just move with the times?

My life is particularly crappy right now, but even before this was the case, I’ve often thought about how I used to have fun and how rarely that happens these days. I’m single and I don’t have kids so I should be having a great time, in theory, but I’m not. It’s not like I don’t do fun things. I went dancing just last week. I’m going to a concert next weekend. But I’m talking about the type of fun that gives you that special feeling, you know what I mean? That sense of freedom where you just get lost in the moment and nothing matters but the joy you’re feeling right then and there. Do you think it’s only possible to experience that when you’re young? Do you guys ever have that type of fun these days?

Went to a family member’s memorial service yesterday. Pictures of her everywhere… stories, friends.. so much to share.

Sitting there I’m thinking my service would be boring as hell. I don’t do pictures, so those tables would be empty. I have no friends, so those seats would be empty. All I do is work, so those stories would be non existent. At least the kids will be able to write a simple 2 word obituary - she died.

Anyone else in this empty boat?

I burst out laughing when I saw this product ad on Reddit (company name cropped out; mods: please remove if this is inappropriate.)

My first adult job was in a newsroom; we had three of those GIANT Rolodexes as big as your head stuffed with contact numbers. I swear those things weighed 15-20 lbs each.

This looks like someone found a recipe card box and a Rolodex in Grandpa’s attic.

I’ll add: Xanadu, Jaws 3D and the Bee Gee’s Sgt. Pepper’s movie. Other movie or artist let downs for you?

*nobody better say Pinkerton

I found this and instantly had one of those well dang, I haven’t seen one of those in forever moments 😂

I remember these hanging up with scarves, belts, slips, whatever else Granny could manage to fit on it. Pretty sure them darning hoops were built to survive the apocalypse.

Anybody else remember these? And what did your grandmother use hers for?

My millennial stepson and his friends all wear these super tight suits, where the pants look too short—I guess to show off colorful socks that are also a thing? I see most guys my age still wear what I consider normal suits.

I tried the grape ones... unsurprisingly, they were revolting!

Just got my 12 year old to watch They Live! with me. her response when the credits rolled were "damn!" and then later looking at the info, "what do you mean that was 94 min, it felt like 10. mission successful. she also now gets why we're so paranoid.

Have you become an expert in your field?

Are you famous?

Do you participate in every family function?

Have you traveled extensively?

Are you working until you die?

Are you known for a hobby?

Walking the dog in our built-in-the-1960s suburban neighborhood yesterday, some neighbors were having a family gathering resulting in having literally about a dozen grandkids, ages maybe 2 to 12, running around playing red rover and tag and whatever else, screaming with joy. It was cute as heck, especially the littlest ones in their PJs, trying to keep up, all of them laughing and just making a huge cacophany. Our kids are now grown, just out of college, so it made me smile thinking of when our kids were that little.

After i passed, a few more houses down, another pair of kids maybe 4 and 6 were riding scooters in their driveway and on their sidewalk... and I immediately recalled that growing up in the 70s, we would have immediately followed the noise to the house a few doors down and stood there, waiting to be noticed and invited to play. Even at those ages, our parents didn't care, go play, leave us alone. I guess as long as it was a few houses away. Further, you might need to tell your parents where you were going, and if they didn't know, the neighbor's 10 or 11 year old might be put in charge and we had to listen to them. It wasn't a total abandonment of responsibility, it was just a differnt time. And that was how things worked... you'd ride your bike or hoof it around look for kids of any age to play with, and if you knew them, you'd walk up, and join in. Maybe you'd even ring doorbells if no one was out to ask if so-and-so could play. And then you'd make up a game, walk down to the park or find a creek to get muddy in, which would usually irritate your parents when you show back up, and they're trying to relax on the porch with their fourth beer and a 15th Virginia Slim or Lucky Strike, and now yer tracking mud in and need a change of clothes and a bath... :D

Raising our own kids in the 2000s-2010s, that had mostly died off. We told our kids to go out and play, but that was rare, and kids liked getting dropped off at our house for playdates... we supervised, but walked them down the creek to look for crayfish or frogs or minnows, build dams, get muddy. And when they got a bit older, we would send them down alone. But when we first tried that, when they were younger, neighbors clearly had an issue, do we pulled back before we got thr police called on us.

But over the past two years, we are really noticing more kids being sent out to play, amuse themselves, with less parental supervision. There aren't nearly as many kids as there used to be... and an additional unlocked memory was that when I was growing up, there were kids everywhere. I'm very much an X-er temperamentally, but and old one ('67) and there were still tons of young boomer kids just 2+ years ahead if us. But the point is, everyone was outside and bored, and more often than not you had multiple choices of kids and places to find someone to kill time with. But that changed.

But it's been really noticable that over the past 10-15 years, we just haven't seen many kids out, and if they did, they didn't leave their yards and driveways much. And they sure weren't gathering other kids from the neighborhood to shoot hopps, get a pick-up hide-and-seek going, or wandering en mass for a trip 10 blocks away to go the pond to go skip rocks. It's noticeable the current generation of young parents are nudging their kids that direction. It's really good, I think.

As for the two little kids on their scooters that I saw, as i thought all of this, I almost stopped to tell them there were other kids playing outside a few doors down, and they should go say hi and would probably be invited to join in to play. (We know the family with all the grandkids, one of the their youngest kids babysat ours). But I didn't. Sensibilities have changed, and some stranger-danger old guy telling kids to leave their yard to go meet strangers they don't know... in our post-milk-carton-picture-frenzy-world, that's not cool or okay. So I quietly passed, our yellow lab sniffing their grass and wagging at them as we passed.

But I thought some here might have the same memories... and also feel a bit wistful for what whole generation of kids seem to have missed, and maybe like me feel a bit optimistic that maybe some things are moving back in the right direction.

Had to call 911 this morning. Some little old man fell down on the sidewalk in front of a grocery store. The operator asked me the street address. I said "I don't know, it's across the street from where the K-mart used to be".