I'm So Polyglamorous

The Millennium will always be Not That Long Ago. Everything since the Millennium will always be, in some sense, ‘new’.

You can listen to a Top 40 station now and hear a song from 10 years ago easily, even songs from the 80s or 90s on special occasions (which might just be the Nineties at Noon or whatever every single day).

A Top 40 station in the 80s? Played the current fucking Top 40 and that was it. You were lucky if you heard a song that was one year old, definitely never ten. I was born in 1979 and heard almost no music from before I was born until high school or college. If you wanted to hear anything older than a year, you had to listen to a classic rock (late 60s to 70s) or oldies (50s to early 60s) station. There was nothing earlier than that on the radio.

A restaurant was playing What a Feeling, from 1983. 28 years before my son was born. That’s the equivalent of hearing a song from 1951 in the late 80s, which just did not happen. Even for an oldies station, it was hard to find anything that old.

VCRs were just getting big in the mid-80s, but there was a limited selection of videos you could buy (or even rent) for them. Most video rental stores didn’t bother to stock TV shows, it just wasn’t worth it. (Few shows were even released on VHS.)

So you could generally watch recent movies and “classics” but if you were looking for some random movie from the mid-70s - that’s only ten years previous - you were mostly out of luck. Imagine looking for a movie from 2006 right now, and you can find maybe the top-grossing ones and a few that won Oscars, but Night at the Museum? The Devil Wears Prada? You’re shit outta luck. That’s what it would have been like looking for movies from 1976 in 1989.

So for those of us who grew up in the 80s and early 90s, pop culture had a hard limit of about a decade, if that. By the late 90s, the internet was good enough that music was starting to stretch that, but you still couldn’t really get video through the internet and DVDs were still catching up in terms of what was available. You didn’t really get entire seasons of TV on DVD until the early 00s - the first season of The Simpsons, which aired in 1989, wasn’t released on DVD until 2001.

wendys

what i had: four for $4 burger and lemonade.

what i thought: this is the same as mcdonalds but there is a smiling girl! the guy who invented wendys was called somethng else so who is wendy. Food apparaition?

rating: 3/5. food was boring but mysterious girl warmed my heart

cook out

what i had: hot dog and shake

what i thought: holy shit. also milkshakes in america are like, solid ice cream. i was expecting nesquik

rating: 5/5. the hot dog was nauseating but cost a dollar and the cashier liked toys

steak n shake

what i had: you can only have burgers and shakes from this restaurant so thats what i got baby!! when in roam!! hasta la vista!!

what i thought: siri didnt know how to get there so we got lost on the highway at 1am. WOOPS!!! thats the american life

rating: 4/5. tasted like i was dying, but pleasantly

cracker barrel

what i had: friday fish fry up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what i thought: there was lots of old people in this restaurant. the waitress avoided me because my nails were painted. this is a well documented phenomneom but biscuits are definitely something different in this country than my country

rating: 2/5. scary torture cabin

costco

what i had: piza slice

what i thought: i know this isnt technicaly a restaurant but drinks were 50 cents so it gets an honorable mention. there was a crate of mayonnaise but i didnt try that.

what i had: burrito. do they make other things?

what i thought: the logo is a chilli pepper but there werent actually any chilli peppers you could have in the food? i enjoyed the dainty red basket

rating: 3/5. guess burritos just always taste good, no matter what theyre made of. i think the chipotle burritos were made using some kind of food product but im not sure.

sonic drive thru

what i had: loaded chilli cheese dog’ fourht of july baby!! happy star wars day

what i thought: very inconceivable. there is a sit in a drive in and a drive thru and the sonic drive thru person comes over to your car in roller skates. its a made up cartoon store. it doesnt exist

rating: 5/5. we spent 20 minutes googling if you tip at sonic and in the end we drove off so my guilt prevents me from assessing it poorly

taco bell

what i had: it only sells tacos in like threes so i got three tacos.

what i thought: its like a dorito with a leaf stapled to it. why is it called taco bell? also, who am i, inside?

rating: 4/5. i flung six tacos in the microwave when we got back and i enjoyed watching them roll over each other playfully -  made me think of my childhood and the political conspiracy around my birth.

sheetz

what i had: chicken nuggets at 2am

what i thought: it was interesting that about half of the items on the interactive menu ended with a ‘z’ rather than an s. while that was fun - i would not go so far as to say i died at sheetz but i certainly did not leave it in one piece due to the colossal spinning death blade embedded into the milkshake machine

Ashe: Mine? Ubert 2020: Yaaaaaaaaaay

Ingrid: I just feel lonely.

Ashe: But you have all of us! Plus, your pegasus!

Ingrid: I know, but I can just never shake the feeling I should have... more. Like, two sisters who also ride pegasi.

Ashe is my boi

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Female Byleth: *complaining about how Linhardt constantly skips training in favor of napping in an unknown location*

Male Byleth: *knows the exact locations of all of his napping spots since he married him in another timeline*

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Male Byleth: *theorizing about why Sylvain hasn’t come back with any women in the past week*

Female Byleth: Oh yeah. Him and Felix are f*ckin’.

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Female Byleth: Which books do you think I should get Ashe for his birthday?

Male Byleth: *Takes out his list* Which ones does he have?

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Male Byleth: *Crying about how he can’t marry Dimitri/Claude*

Female Byleth, who hasn’t been able to unsee Hilda’s titty window for a month now: I feel you, Bro.