Dont Call Me Generation X

Iam a child of the eighties. That is what I prefer to be called. The naughties can do without me. Grunge isn't here to stay, fashion is fickle and "Generation X" is a myth created by some over-60 writer trying to figure out why people wear flannel in the summer.

When I got home from school, I played with my Atari 2600. I spent hours playing British Bulldog or Curb or Leap Frog. I never did beat Asteroids. Then I watched "Scooby-Doo." Daphne was a Goddess, and I thought Shaggy was smoking something synthetic in the back of their psychedelic van. I hated Scrappy.

I would sleep over at friends' houses on the weekends. We played army with actionman figures, and I set up galactic wars between Autobots and Decepticons. We stayed up half the night throwing marshmallows at one another. We never beat the Rubik's Cube.

On week nights Daisy Duke was my future wife and I would someday own the General Lee. Why did they weld the doors shut.

I got up on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to watch bad Hanna-Barbera cartoons on anything goes like "Snorks," "Captain Caveman," and "Space Ghost.In between I watched the rug rats and make and do with Mary Fitzgerald.

When you put this stuff together and you have my childhood, if this sounds familiar to you then you are one too. A child of the 80s.