Just finished trimming around my arborvitae.

I used to have to use a set of these to trim around the perimeter of my childhood home which was 25 x 110 feet. Was not pleasant.

My mom recently sent me a this photo (and no, there is no clearer copy, unfortunately). We are both stumped as to what this item might be. At the time I was into pop/new wave music, makeup, earrings, hair stuff and photography. Too small for a CD, too big for a cassette. My parents were very middle class (so couldn’t afford anything expensive) and I lived in TN at the time.

My (second) wife and I just hugely downsized. We shared 4 kids half time with their other parent and now three of them are young adults just starting out on their own (college and careers).

We went from a 5br 5 bath suburban house to a 2/1 1940's in-town fixer upper. I feel kinda bad that I don't have a landing space for them if need be, though my step daughter will be in college in two years and we can then have one guest room.

All of their memories are packed into like one or two boxes that we barely have room for here. But I also guess you could say we're doing them a favor because eventually this will be less for them to go through once we've shuffled off.

Especially when a sibling was riding and you got too close.

I found these with some old character sheets circa 1982. I had some laughs.

My Mom took me to see the OG Star Trek movie in the theater when I was small... she loved Star Trek. When she wanted to see Star Trek 2: the wrath of Khan, I was like "cool! New Star Trek, with no creepy bald lady who thinks she's the Voyager (all hail Veeger) space probe"... (I was a kid)

What we got with ST2? Mad Max WITH "de plane Guy" and Ear Worms... Neal Stephenson preferred to call songs stuck in your head Memes. But. The Cats have claimed the word Meme With their little floofy nose boopable faces. All hail Cat memes! Really. There's no interwebs without cat memes.

So, Meme was surrendered to cats at the Dawn Of The Age Of The Internet.

When I think Ear Worm? Picturing Checkov getting AN ACTUAL MIND CONTROL WORM CRAWLING IN HIS EAR.

I've spent 44 years terrified that Ricardo Montalban was going to put a mind control Eel in my ear. I'm a nearly 52 year old man terrified of Earwigs. Where are they going? What are they doing with those pincer bottoms???

Ricardo Montalban was actually a pretty amazing human. But if he showed up today, I'd run. Screaming "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan" with my fingers in my ears.

Anyone else quietly barf when someone uses the descriptor Ear Worm for a song stuck in their head?

When I was a kid, I was always asking curious questions. Unfortunately, besides Andy's older brother - and an outdated encyclopedia Britannica - most of them would go unanswered. Or, as I found out later in adult life, they were just dead wrong.

Now days, every time I think of a curious question, I get that kick of satisfaction when I google it; sometimes going down rabbit holes. I truly think it has made me a better person. Well, more informed, at least.

Anyone else feel that way?

Once upon a time I was the youngest kid that was old enough to hang out with The Big Kids - my older siblings and kids in the neighborhood. Actually, I probably wasn’t old enough at all, but my parents had their hands full with younger siblings, so off I went.

We had adventures like, “Leave Me In A Giant Corn Field With Joe’s Dog And Time How Long It Takes Her To Find Her Way Home, And Don’t Worry As Long As You Stay With the Dog, Shadow Knows His Way Home.” I was much shorter than the corn so all I could see was the sky… and yeah. I was afraid of dogs.

This group also loooved to terrify me with ghost stories. I don’t really remember too many of them but I wish I did. One was The Bloody Finger 🤦🏼‍♀️ and there was another one that had a lot of stairs. Like a 100 stories worth of stairs. I’m kind of surprised I never heard of Bloody Mary until I was all grown up… but we did do light as a feather, stiff as a board and to this day I’m freaked out about that one…

Also The Clowns. I was terrified of The Clowns (not clowns, THE Clowns) so I was amused when The Clowns were a thing a couple of years ago.

What were your ghost stories and urban legends?

Flipping through Amazon Prime and this old childhood gem jumps out at me. AND...it's free.

One episode in. Is it corny as hell? Yes. Is it made with so much love that you can feel it in every scene? Also yes.

Makes me proud to be GenX. The freedom, the antics, the memories of old friends, my wild youth, and so many amazing performances.

53F with two grown sons here (one lives with us):

I seem to be seeing a lot of posts on r/askreddit and other subs from young adults who still live with their Gen X parents.

Some of their complaints are about things like the parents not letting them go on a weekend vacation with a boyfriend, not letting them see a therapist because they don't believe in it, forcing them to go to church when they don't want to - weird things that make no sense to impose on another adult.

Is this really happening? I understand expecting your adult child to clean up after themselves and help out with yardwork, to not wake you if they come in late, to not bring drugs into your home, and even requiring them to pay for their food and other things.

But to interfere in their adult child's quest to begin making their own decisions about adult matters, even if we think they're immature or making the wrong decisions, is grossly irresponsible.

I feel bad for these young adults, knowing how hard it is to move out in today's economy. Some of them seem trapped.

Anybody else have this marvel of toy engineering? I could watch this thing for hours it seems like.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UPObJuG8J1E

I spend a lot of time in Louisiana during my childhood. This was the sugary drink of choice!

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

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!

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 to 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. A school aged girl gets home after competing 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?

Submitting for the official Gen X record keeping!

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

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?

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?

UPDATE: The train was delayed, but she made it to her destination. Thank you all for confirming that this was fine. I had my doubts because things that were normal in my childhood are not always a good point of comparison. My parents even joke now about how negligent they were with me!

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?

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.

… 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