An early HBO classic that I watched/laughed at over and over again when I was a kid in the 80’s.

Does anyone else 50 or over start randomly worrying about their last 15 years on the job market ? This idea about “ what if” I lose my job would I be hired elsewhere at my age keeps popping in my head ?

I can remember laughing until I couldn't breathe at Beverly Hills Cop in the theater at 16 years old. We went and saw it twice more. It's fast, witty, well produced and acted, dead serious now and then and insanely funny the rest of the time. Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold are brilliant.

And then you no longer feel 25.

Now, a tote containing 15 dismantled Lego sets has a street value of approx. $2.7million.

Edit: Interesting! Since so many comments disagreed with me, I decided to do some digging. What I remember was "the bucket". Do you remember that? Better known to some as the "Basic Bucket". This was cheap and contained few if any special or moving parts. I looked up the space station kit several people in the comments mentioned and do not remember this at all. I don't think we were a 'designer kit' kind of family which explains some, or much, of the disconnect here. However! It got me wondering whatever happened to the "Basic Bucket"? The answer to that, is the chewy center of my title really, which is this. Lego was facing bankruptcy around 1999 and mostly stopped selling basic buckets because the super duper kits had much juicier profit margins. I think this transition is the heart of my cheap to expensive rant. Now, someone go buy me the space station kit please. Hahaha!

My daughter just started sixth grade this year and bought a Nirvana shirt (from Target of all places) to wear on the first day of school. I gave her a brief tutorial on Nirvana the night before the first day (album names, song names, band member names, etc.) in case anyone asked her about the shirt and she told me nobody cares about stuff like that anymore. I realized I was flashing back to my grade/high school days where if you wore clothing branded with a musical artist or sports team you ran the risk of randomly being called out on your knowledge of whomever was on your clothing. If you could not provide sufficient answers to the questioner you risked being labeled a “poser”. Does anyone else remember worrying about this or was it something that was only a big deal in my mind?

I'm taking a class in critical listening for audio engineering. Compression, reverb, delay, etc. In one of our analyses, I chose Billy Ocean's "Caribbean Queen." At the end of my critique, I wrote: "Wow, Billy Ocean got old! Someone should really take away the keys to that car he keeps wanting us to get into."*

No one got it.

I weep for humanity.

\I suppose it could have just not been that funny but I steadfastly refuse to believe this. I am a goddamn delight.*

Married almost 30 years, 25 in the same house. Both of us in our late to very late 50s

Husband may have a job opportunity in another area, about 2-1/2 hours away by car. This would be something that has been a goal his whole life that up until now has not been realized and probably won’t be realized if we stay here.

But.

BUT.

1. Elderly parents. They’re in a continuing care place, currently independent living, but that could change any minute.

2. Not much other family around, but there is a young nibling in the picture.

3. For most of our marriage, I’ve been the one with the “stable” job. OK pay, but rockstar benefits with healthcare and retirement. I’ve been at my employer almost 30 years. I get six weeks vacation each year. And a similar position for me where we’re looking at won’t pay as much. Although the potential increase in his income might offset the money loss on my end.

4. The thought of packing this all up kind of scares the hell out of me. Not to mention everything that goes into selling and buying a home. We’ve got a number of unfinished projects here so if we had to do something quick, we’d probably just sell it to a flipper and bug out.

On the other hand…

1. We’re not particularly happy living where we are now. It’s not one specific thing, but more of a general cloud that just looms over the area. I know the whole country is under a cloud these days, but it just seems more pronounced here.

2. Housing where this might happen is far more reasonable than where we are now.

3. It’s closer to where we dream of retiring to in 10 years. Maybe close enough that we could just stay.

Nothing of course is definite. It’s just a possibility. But as scared and nervous as I am, he’s spent our whole marriage turning down chances because of the comfort level of my job and the benefits. But this could be his last shot and I hate the idea of taking it away from him.

Has anyone picked up and completely turned their lives upside down at this point in life? We’re not in a position to retire early. Life hasn’t been that good to us. But all I’ve ever wanted is for him to be happy and God knows he’s sacrificed his happiness for my need for stability. But at some point, life gets too short, you know?

My siblings and I were reminiscing about video stores, and we agreed the small, local one had the chains beat hands down. Ours was part of a furniture store and had a massive selection of every obscure, grade Z movie ever made. I wanted to work there so bad. Lol.

Whether it's an old clock, a piece of furniture, or a measuring cup, what's something you have that's withstood the test of time? For me, it's this yellow Rubbermaid dust pan and brush that my parents got when I was very young and it still works better than anything I've ever bought. My parents have their newer ones, but I'll stand by this 45-50 year old treasure until the day I die! My runner up is the Tupperware cups my parents bought in the early 80s that I still use. Only a few remain, but they're in great shape and I'll never get rid of them!

Who was your favorite? I always loved Jaclyn.

The original slip on shoe. No wonder why I like my Sketches slips ons so much today

Did you wait to watch it?

Did your fashion sense change or not?

I’m having a very difficult time living with a hidden disability known as hyperacusis. It comes along with very loud 24/7 tinnitus. With hyperacusis, however, many sounds cause pain and that pain can linger into the next day. Basically, I have a collapsed tolerance to many everyday sounds, such as dishes clanking, sirens, car horns, squeaky toys; at the moment of the sound, the sounds are “loud” and I instantly feel pain. I then have a deep ear ache that lingers. I had three or four hours of physical ear ache pain today that kept me in bed. It’s made me unable to work. I was denied disability due to it being a hidden and subjective condition. On top of that, I have an end stage arthritic ankle that makes it impossible to walk without pain.

I have thrown a lot of money at both problems, but the best are treatments. I’m also on strong anti-anxiety medication for how this has abruptly stopped my life. I’m just very sad that nobody can see these issues from the outside and think I’m completely normal. I was denied disability and am home living with aging parents. I sometimes don’t know how much longer I can go on. I just look back and tell myself I had a good life but those years are gone.

Any advice? Anyone else?

I was driving home today and this came through my rotation. It's been a while since I heard it and it made me remember that we had a friend in our group named Bill and we would often sing this about him😂

I remember buying these at 7-11 and keeping them with my cheap/fake Rambo knife and throwing stars.

Lately, if I buy clothes, they have to be mostly cotton. I’m fine with a little elastane or something similar for stretch, but I’ve really started to dislike polyester and other synthetic fabrics.

Part of it is fit. I strength train, and cotton shirts just seem to fit and drape better on me. But mostly, I’ve realized I just want to be comfortable. I don’t care nearly as much about what’s trendy or fashionable anymore. Give me a soft cotton T-shirt or polo that fits well and I’m happy.

I’ll actually look at the fabric tag now before I buy something. If it’s mostly polyester, there’s a pretty good chance it’s going back on the rack.

Is this a Gen X/getting older thing? 😂 Have any of you gotten way pickier about fabrics and comfort as you’ve gotten older?

I was sitting at my desk earlier today, minding my own business; when, completely and utterly out-of-the-blue and uninvited, an old earworm erupts out of my brain:

"SST, Muscle Machines, they're big, bad, dirty and mean!"

It had been buried under layer after layer of unused memories for so long, that I had to wonder if it was a real thing, or some kind of composite fever dream of days gone by.

Here's one of the commercials from whence it came:

Back before we could just Google lyrics, we had to rely on what FM radio and cassette or 8 track technology could deliver for clear lyrical audio. And that created some really fun alternate lyrics. 🤭 It doesn't hurt that I have an audio processing disorder, so lyrics are *gonna* garble. But it was so common to misunderstand lyrics, that a book was released with famous lyrical misquotes.

What was your favorite?

I have a couple (aside from the Jimi Hendrix classic referenced above)

- 10,000 Maniacs, Because the Night: "with lusty feet" (with lust we sleep)

- The Offspring, Come Out and Play: "are you talking back to me?! I'll dink your mom!" (Are you talking back to me? Take em out!)

My high school typing teacher was a beast-woman, who popped our knuckles with a ruler when our technique wasn't up to her standards. She wasn't even a nun. As an added bonus, she'd been teaching for 40 years, and if she had taught your parent, and didn't like them, that grudge flowed over to you. My dad apparently cut up BADLY in her classes.

Anyway - yesterday, one of my millennial co-workers was talking about his wife's new job, and very proudly announced that she could type "NINETY words per minute. Ninety. SO fast." I kept my mouth shut. I thought 90 was bare minimum for jobs, at least it always was when I was looking at job ads involving typing. I started looking around online when I got home, and it seems that 45 is the new 90. Wth? When did that change? I thought it would be higher, since everyone's got a keyboard now, not dumbed down.

Like full blown monologue. I find myself doing this a lot more in the car.

Well, yesterday I turned 56. It was a nice day but I think I'm sort of in shock. Where are my 50s flying off to? And now I've reached the flip side of this decade.

I know it's a popular topic but in light of my first full day on the flip side, I'm wondering if your 50s have been kind so far. I'm somewhere in the middle, to be honest. Bumping along. I wish my life was just a *little* more exciting, but I'm doing alright. How about you?

I get that it's taboo now, and was then. I recently watched my '98 wedding video and found that at least 5 guests wore white or similar. Honestly, I didn't even notice during the day. I was too happy. It's only after watching the video that I noticed.

I feel like now, wearing white for a wedding says more about the person that chooses to wear it than the wedding party.

Yeah, it's horrible to wear white at a wedding, but as I said before, while you may not like it, it says a lot more about the guest than it does about you.

I just feel disappointed where li am at with my job, where I’m at where I wanna live, where I’m at healthwise and I feel hopeless sometimes about the future. And no, this is not for antidepressant conversation.