Another Weird High School Fad...

Cigarettes Flooding a Toilet
Image from here.

I found the weirdest thing/fad in my high school to be smoking cigarettes in the bathroom stalls.  


Now, is it just me or did every school always have a group of kids smoking cigarettes in the bathroom stalls?  I mean, I personally never truly got it.  Why the bathroom?  It is gross, it smells gross and it leaves students at a much greater risk at getting caught by a teacher or an administrator.  


The major excuse I have gotten for why many students smoke in the doorless stalls of the public school bathrooms is that they were not permitted to leave the school premises without an official pass from an administrator.  I suppose this makes sense.  These kids in my book are somewhat justified and in the clear.  


However, at my high school, students were always permitted to leave school grounds whether it was to run to the parking lot or grab something they left at soccer practice the previous day.  Therefore, this was never an excuse at all.  The students [and I don't mean to stereotype, but it was usually the Emo crowd] just happened to ALWAYS mark the bathroom stalls as their territory for smoking their cigarettes, typically the last stall in the row, farthest from the door.  


Personally, I am a nonsmoker with nothing against cigarette smokers.  However, when it's sixth period and I really need to pee, walking into a cloud of cigarette smoke is just a royal pain in the ass.  Any thoughts?

Slapping the Bag

For me, Franzia hit the scene around 10th grade.  It was pretty epic and spread rampantly.  There is one girl in particular I remember who single handedly made slapping the bag a vital part of every high school party.  For those of you who are completely confused as to the fad I am referring to, I will break slapping the bag down:

• Get a box of Franzia.  In my opinion Blush is the best, but there are some options.  Market price is around $12-$16 for the big box and $9-$10 for the smaller box.

Blush Franzia

Image from here.

• Take the plastic bag inside the box of Franzia out of the cardboard box.

Image from here.

• Find at least one friend, but the more people, the more epic your experience. 

• Have your friend hold the bag high in the air, but not too high.  High enough so you can slap it.  A tall friend is a good friend for this situation. Example:

Image from here.

• Look at the bag while you wind up your slapping hand.

Image from here.

• Stare that bag down.  You got this.

Image from here.

• Slap the bag; slap it with all of your heart and soul.  

Technique to Properly Slap the BagImage from here.

• Immediately begin twisting the plastic knob on the box of wine to the left as you kneel down.  Some boxes also have a button to press.  This is ideal and in this case just push the button.

• Open your mouth wide and start gulping cheap wine. Keep drinking until you feel satisfied.  Once satisfaction is reached, back away slowly from the box as you let wine drip on the ground in front of you.  Make sure not to spill all over your clothes.  Make sure not to vomit.
• CAUTION: The dark red Franzia stains!

Image from here.

• Take a bow. You were just the life of the party for 2 minutes.  

Image from here.

• Okay, now step aside.  Your 2 minutes are over either get lost or hold the bag for the next person.

And the words of the day are....

SLINKY.

The Original Slinky
Image from here.

What a fun word and another throw back fad.  The toy was developed by a naval engineer named Richard James in the early 1940s.  The slinky is not the most exciting of toys, but it sure is timeless.  Even today, the slinky is featured in the epic Toy Story series through Slinky, Andy's reliable dog. 

The Timeless Slinky the Dog
Image from here.

Slinky's were cool for a few seconds and a nice piece to have on your desk, but overall are pretty lame.  Maybe it's just me, but I'm way over the slinky in under 2 minutes.  Seeing the Slinky crawl down the stairs was probably the coolest thing the Slinky had to offer.


And the newer, cooler slinky's came in all sorts of colors and shapes and tended to be more plastic in nature.  They were way more fun and tended to look like:

New and Improved rainbow edition slinky!
Image from here.

And another fun word just to throw in there.  Yo Yo!  Very appropriate.  The Yo Yo was most certainly a fad that spread rapidly throughout the years and apparently has quite a history...check it out!

The Yo Yo is a really fun, inexpensive toy that is perfect for showing off tricks.  Though I was never a Yo Yo master I certainly attempted some of the elite tricks such as walk the dog and around the world.  Around the world was a bit dangerous and usually ended with me taking a Yo-yo to the face.  

There were three distinct types of Yo Yo's.  I personally worked the butterfly the best, but here's a look at them:

Image from here.

The biggest problem I have with the Yo Yo is the string.  It always seemed to get stuck to my fingers or twisted up at the bottom.  Perhaps that is because I do not have the skills of him.

Just Ridin' on my Razor & Hoppin' on my...

Ahhh.  the Razor, and I'm not talking about the hair removal ones ladies and gents.  I'm talking about the appearance of the 1999 EPIC RAZOR SCOOTER.  Kids, you no longer have to take the bus!  So how long would it take to get to school on a scooter??  Well, lets just put it this way. If it took the bus 15 minutes to drop you off, it probably take you about 13 minutes on your Razor.  Actually, with preparation and parking, probably around 17 minutes.  But, hey, you looked the man, HanSOLO!

I don't care what haters have to say.  Scooters were really fun, and just like all of the other fads, parents HATED them.  Parents would always try and make you wear a helmet because some spaz kid tried to do a flip off of a ramp and cracked his head open.  Moms that look quite like HERE.


I will say though, if you actually wore a helmet while scooting on a razor, that's pretty lame, especially in middle school.  I mean I guess if your like a scooter Pro doing crazy Razor tricks its a different story and helmets welcomed; but for everyday riding around school helmets were definitely not the coolest. 

The variety of colors and sizes made the scooter different and gave Micro Mobility Systems the competitive advantage.  

Different Color ScootersImage From: this website.

--Once I had my Razor, I had my first taste of freedom. --Anonymous

AND HERE COMES AN EPIC 
THROWBACK TO AN 
UNFORGETTABLE 
FAD FROM A  
LONG TIME 
AGO. 


DRUMROLL SLASH SLOW CLAP...

wait for it..... wait for...it... 

THE POGO STICK!

I personally SUCKED at the Pogo Stick.  I maxed out at around 3? 4? It was not a pretty sight.  There was always one kid that was amazing and could hop around for days, making the rest of us look pathetic.   

According to this world record information regarding the Pogo Stick are as follows:

"Jumps on a Pogo Stick: The greatest number of consecutive jumps achieved on a pogo stick is 177,737, by Gary Stewart at Huntington Beach, California, USA on May 25-26, 1990. The attempt took him 20 hours and 20 minutes. Gary first tried a pogo stick in 1974, when he and his older brother, Dave, were given a dime-store model by a neighbor. 

Dave managed 31 jumps, and so Gary “stayed out in the garage until I could do more than 31." His determination eventually paid off and by 1985 he had set a record with 130,077 jumps in 17 hours, 26 minutes, which he went on to beat in 1990. And the reason for all this bouncing around? "Ever since I was in the first grade I would get a Guinness Book for Christmas every year. That book was my bible. Getting my name in it was like really an important thing to me. It was kind of a childhood dream."

Pretty cool stuff...

Bop It BABY!!!!

Though the Bop It came out in 1996 during my elementary school years, it is well-worth mentioning.


Bop it. Pull it. Twist it. Pull it. Pull it. Pull it. 


It sounded almost sexual, the weird fad that was Bop It.  This was like the modern era Simon Says that had three options announced in a deep, demanding voice: bop it, pull it or twist it.  Or that's how it started...

The Original Bop It
Image from here.

Then it got extreme.  The options went to: bop it, pull it twist it, pass it, spin it, flick it or pass it.  This was a challenge.  It really got to be a complex mind game memorizing how fast and in what order the functions were in.  

The Bop It EXTREME
Image from here.

I always wanted to bring a Bop It to a library and just play to see how long it would take every person in the place to completely flip out.  It could be funny and maybe make it onto Tosh.0.  Anyhow the Bop It now looks like:

NEW Bop It Extreme
Image from here.

Craziness!  Look at that new and improved baby.  It would probably be really hard for us kids who grew  up with the original Bop It Extreme because all of the functions are all out of order [sneaky manufacturers!].  


The only question I have about the Bop It is did anyone ever win???  Like seriously, I am determined to know if any single person I knew ever reached an end that was like "YOU WIN THE BOP IT. NOW GO DO SOMETHING ELSE."  Really though, that did the game ever max out? Anyone??

An Ode to One of the First Cell Phones on the Block

Old School Nokia Cellphone
Image from 

I will never forget the day I got my first cellphone.  In hindsight if cellphones didn't come onto the market for another 10 years I would have saved my parents thousands of dollars in the amount of cellphones I have either lost or broke.

Anyhow, I digress because this cellphone wasn't just any stinkin' cellphone.  It was the bomb.  I had the old school Nokia with the supped up antenna.  What up now? And I had a cover that was shiny and blue so my phone was pimped out.

But the best part of the phone by far (minus all of my 9 contacts) was snake.  Snake was the best cellphone game to this day I will say it proudly.  Brickbreaker doesn't stand a change in competing with the awesomeness level of snake.

Something about chasing a small black dot around with a growing black line that grows and grows as you eat the dots was thrilling.  Not to mention addicting, once you started a game of snake, you were zonked out for at least spans of fifteen minutes.  Almost the equivalent of today's Angry Birds. 

An old school game of Snake
Image from here

This first cellphone changed the course of teenage life as we know it.  It was immediately followed by camera cellphones and look at how far we have come today.  But, remember an ode to that old school Nokia!!!!

Also I was just informed of one of the greatest tricks ever for all you snake lovers.  Props to Ryan Haughey.  Anyhow, for everyone with a Mac you can go on any Youtube video pause it.  Once it is playing you press the up arrow button and the left arrow button at the same time and you can play snake on the YouTube screen.  Pretty cool.  Check it out!  Here is a screen shot of playing snake on just an average YouTube video

Image is a screenshot from a Mac on a Black Screen YouTube video. 

Just Takin' a Stroll in My Fresh HEELYS

Heelys came onto the scene in 2000, right around the year I was entering middle school.  They were created by an American, Roger Adams, who sought to make a shoe that could role on command.  The shoe itself was epic.  It basically was designed like a normal tennis shoe, but embedded in the heel of each shoe was a wheel, where the kid was to ride, rather than walk down the hallway, the street, the mall or wherever he/she should choose.

Photo from Dicks Sporting Goods online store listed as
Heelys Street Lo Girls' Roller Shoes

The thing about Heelys was you were either a total expert or a total spaz and the in-between phase of learning to figure out these guys was both epic and life-threatening.  The idea is to lean back with one foot ahead of the other and glide down smooth surfaces.  However there were several initial problems that would arise.


The first, the typical "I-leaned-too-far-back-and-just-busted-my-butt-trying-to-look-cool-down-the-hallway."  Example looks like this.


The second, the also common FACE PLANT.  Example looks like this.


The third, the how-the-hell-do-these work??! Example looks like this.


The cool, suave middle school Heely masters aspired to look like her.  [You go Heely chick!]  These were the elite blanaced kids.  Heelys took going to the mall to another level.  You think your just walkin' around the mall?  Not if you have a fresh pair of HEEELYS!!!!! You can roam the mall like this:

clip from YouTube "Heelying at the mall"

God I loved Heelys, but I was such a spaz to begin with usually would wobble into a face-plant.  But I did improve and then I just got too old to wear them.  It was fun while it lasted and I wish I could just still age-appropriately wheel around, but unfortunately I can't though I am very jealous of those mall kids!  

Onto the Middle School Fads: The GOTH. [watch out for the chains]

The Goth.  The most blatant oxymoron of a fad.  The sheer irony of these kids always will amaze me.  Think about it.  The Goth kids are the anti-society, colored-haired rebels who don't give a shit and have an attitude that screams, "screw-the-world!"  Right? Riiiiight.  This is what they think.  

Well, Goth kids listen to my perspective on things.  You wake up at least an hour earlier than everyone else in the morning just to show how much you hate the world.  You buy pants with chains on them, which has to take an extra few minutes to:

1. Assemble in the morning and 

2. Walk down the hallway

     I mean come on those pants are a walking disaster.  Take a wrong turn and your shoe winds up in the awkward criss-cross straps that are your pants (link or pic).  You take at least fifteen minutes every morning drawing on layers of black eye-liner and caking on that black eye shadow. I mean dayummm those Goth kids in my middle school wore more make-up on a day-to-day basis than Krusy the Clown does. (the goth makeup... OR a much better look...)

My personal favorite part of the Goth fad was the other classifications that branched off, but were “completely different” from gothic.  Though the Goth kids are still around today, most of the Goth kids at my middle school went through a full-scale evolutionary cycle that started with Goth and has transformed into hipster. Apparently when being Goth loses its appeal there are many other options to choose from including: punk, scene, emo and hipster.  Let me help breakdown the differences:

•     The Punk Kid
•     The Scene Kid
•     The Emo Kid
•     The Hipster

Evolution of the pants of the goth to the hipster… 

Another one of my favorite memories of the Goth kids was their transition from middle school to high school.  A significant portion of the Goth middle schoolers gave up their chained pants, colored hair, black eyeliner and combat boots as they entered high school.  I guess they, too, realized that it was just becoming a hassle to wake up so early to hate the world as they decided to shift from anti-conformists to average teenage students.  The shift was shocking, however, for those of us who spent the last three years knowing a student as a Goth, equipped in their Goth attire.  It was kind of like a, “Holy $hi%! You have blonde hair??!!” type of revelation.  Now if I was surprised to see this immense transformation I can only imagine the parents of these kids.  I mean it had to be a giant sigh of relief when your daughter goes from wearing this to school to this.  

For some reason or another being Goth peaks throughout ones middle school years.  Perhaps it’s the awkward transition into puberty that drives kids to adopt this lifestyle.  Perhaps it’s a blatant opposition to one’s parents throughout these tough years.  Whatever the reason may be, I have one suggestion for all the future Goths of the world:

Drop the act by high school.  If you are still dressing up in all black to put your middle finger up at society in high school, you need to check yourself.  It was funny and entertaining for three years, but by high school join a club or organization that professes these ideals you hold cuz let me be quite frank, unless you are a member of Kiss, people will not consider your ideals [whether or not they are valid] in your freaky Gothic attire.

And in case your into huntin' hipsters, check this out:

Just a note to the Goths of the world: this is all in good humor, please do not take anything I write personally.

Pokémon Cards

The epic, the Charizard card.

Image from this website.

1. Unlike Beanie Babies, Pokémon cards actually ended up being worth a significant amount of dough (The Charizard Pokemon card still goes for 36 bucks).


2.  Girls certainly enjoyed collecting Pokémon cards.  Though I was not one of them, many girls have assured me they too enjoyed the feeling of ripping open a fresh pack of Pokemon cards.


3. How about those holograms? "Open up a fresh pack and you see Charizard...it was the best moment of my life" [That was a direct quote from 20 year old Ryan Haughey I have no idea who Charizard is, probably some really large Japanese lizard if I had to guess]


4. It was addicting.  Those cards just took over the schools.  People would get those binders just like the Pog binders and have them stacked to the brim with the evolutionary cycle of each of the Pokémon.


5. Energy cards. "Worthless piece of $^&T energy cards" [Another direct quote from Ryan Haughey]. These cards were used to be able to make your Pokémon attack when you played the actual Pokémon game, but who played the actual game?  I have learned through research in the game respect Pokémon cards were pretty much like Pogs.  Not many people really played the game it was more about collecting the cards that were the rarest.  


6. Lunch time was prime time for Pokémon trading.  Pokémon trading was an innocent hobby that set the future businessmen from the future social workers.


7. On the bottom right corner of every Pokémon card there was a symbol.  You either got a circle, a diamond or a star.  Getting a circle meant you got coal for Christmas.  Diamonds were neutral and when you got a star you hit the jackpot.  The stars were the cards you really got pumped about.  Victory dances that looked like this.


8. Pikachu!  Though I initially thought this little yellow creature suffered from chronic allergies I learned that this was his actual voice.  Pikachu is a central character in the Pokémon anime series, making him one of, if not the most recognizable Pokémon.  


9. Here's another funny question that I stumbled upon while on my quest for research about Pokémon cards.  Ever wonder how they came up for the names of Pokemon cards?


10. The Japanese obviously had some secret chemical that they were putting into their toys to make them especially addicting.  Tamagotchis, Pokémon cards....both were not that fun, but for some reason were that addicting.


Anymore Pokemon memories, anyone?

Beanie Babies (You knew it was comin')

So here's something everyone should remember from the 90s: beanie babies.  These small furry animals stuffed with beads blew up like Hiroshima in the early 90s. And it wasn't about having a few lovable playmates, it was about having as many of these bean-filled buddies as you could possibly have.

One of my most notable memories is the controversy surrounding the TY tag on the beanie babies.  I personally found the tag to be somewhat of an annoyance so naturally I ripped off the tags of my beanie babies the minute I got them.  However, it soon became quite a big deal to keep the TY tag on your beanie babies.  People said this was because the tag meant the beanie baby had value.  Looking back I'd like to ask these people, WHAT VALUE?!  I mean the originals were what $5?  And it's not like the toys were some rare specimen.  Every kid had at least ten.  Did people really believe that if they preserved the beanie babies tag they would be able to sell it back years later for a huge profit? Come on.

Though I was strongly opposed to keeping the TY tags on, I was challenged at school by some fourth grade brat: "That's not a REAL beanie baby! It doesn't have a TY tag." "Yes it is, I just took it off," I retorted. "Yeah, right!  Everyone knows to keep the tag on. That's totally fake!"

That was it.  From this point on I found it essential to keep the TY tags on.  The tag was essentially a status symbol.  If your TY tag was on you were flying first class.  If your TY tag was ripped off--you were   in coach, and your parents cheap-ed out of getting you the good one.


So basically having beanie babies was a huge competition to separate the spoiled brats from the kind-of-spoiled kids from the kids whose parents just flat out didn't love them.  The spoiled brat beanie baby conversation would sound something like this:

"I just got the just released, limited edition, brand-new, beanie baby Princess Diana bear.  So now I have 862 beanie babies! Ha!!"


"Oh yeah?! Well, I have 904 beanie babies and my Mom said she ordered the Diana bear plus the new Quacker the Duck without the wings and they only made like 15 Quacker the Ducks in the world!"

Yeah, I couldn't hang with this crowd of one-uppers.  I was in the semi-spoiled group and had my fair share of fuzzy friends, but 904?! Jeez, that's just excessive and spoiling a child at this age will surely backfire on his/her parents; it's just a matter of time...


The biggest problem I faced when the beanie baby storm finally subsided was where the hell to put them.  I had about 110 beanie babies, which was taking up some serious closet space.  And you couldn't throw them away because as rumor had it, they were surely "going to be valuable."  Well to everyone who insisted beanie babies would become valuable one day:


Thanks to YOU I kept 110 beanie babies stored in my closet until I graduated high school. Jerks.