Page 37 - Exotic | January 2025

just with an object, that your family is now eating Kid Cui- sines for the next two months and using the Kenwood wool blankets if they’re cold because it’s...fancy and not at all because you now can’t afford groceries or heat. We were the only family with one of these bad boys. BIG bad boys. So big it took three of my dad’s friends and some other contraption just to get it into our house. Projec- tion TVs were awesome because a lightbulb never “went out” on it; you just replaced or fixed the tubes, and if your brother accidentally threw a Wii remote at the screen, it would just put a slight hole in the screen. Only notice- able when looked at in just the right light.
My dad still does not know this ever occurred. And this is why those Wii remotes had wrist ties on them.
Last but not least...
Carpet – There are some colors of carpet that just bring back such specific memories. A faded, blue-nearly-grey carpet, heavily used with a couple of stains. It reminds me of our own carpet at home and all the Elmer’s Glue that was stuck to it, which my mom was never able to get out. The green shag carpet with a little orange tint reminds me of the smell of my grandma’s house. Musty and old. Just like her personality. Lids for all the expen- sive Tupperware sets. Spaghetti on the floor, which you tried to pick up and eat but ended up with a handful of dog hair and shag carpet instead. Ah, memories.
Honorable mentions that I did not feel the need to write about, and instead will allow your own nostalgia to fill in the blanks: handshake buzzer, Squeezeits, Green Apple Bath & Body Works body spray and cigarette smell, secret paper notes, Nickelodeon VHS tapes, Lite-Brite, cars with multi-CD changers, awful boxed art sets for kids, Giga Pet, Yak Pak, Flubber, fake cellphones.
Hannah One Cup can be found at carpet stores, feeling the textures and staring at the colors like fine works of art. Wishing for these simpler times, but glad she is now able to choose her own frozen dinner and drink whiskey. Simulta- neously, if she wanted. Sometimes, she likes being a passen- ger in the back seat of a car, to feel like it did when she had less to worry about and only had to think about what the next stop was going to be.
exotic magazine | xmag.com 37 exotic magazine | xmag.com 37
red pages • to advertise here call 503.241.4317 • red pages • to advertise here call 503.241.4317 • red pages • to advertise here call 503.241.4317