Featured Story | Jennifer & Bill

Oh The Wonderful Things We Did In The 80’s

THINGS WE DON’T DO ANYMORE!

People online are talking about the “pre-’90s” everyday skills that they have . . . but are basically obsolete now.  Here are the best ones:

  1. Wrapping textbook covers with a brown paper bag. Textbooks are mostly online now . . . and there’s no need to wrap a Chromebook in a paper bag.
  2. Unknotting curly telephone wires to get all the curls facing the right way. Landline phones are gone . . . but untangling cords is still useful.  For now.
  3. Giving the TV a “karate chop” to fix the reception.
  4. Remembering phone numbers.
  5. The ability to make and count out change for a purchase. That’s even an expiring skill for CASHIERS.  One person joked, “The total was $9.91.  I gave the cashier $10.01.  And you’d think I handed them a live grenade.”
  6. Setting up a VCR to record a TV show in advance.
  7. Writing in cursive. And reading it.
  8. Using the Dewey Decimal System at the library.
  9. Re-folding a map correctly. And maybe even USING one.
  10. Developing and processing photographic film, and enlarging prints in a darkroom. (Yes, as an “everyday skill” . . . but as an artistic, analog creative thing, it probably won’t ever be fully obsolete.)