
r/Millennials

Pullin up the crib back in the early 2000’s fall be like 🦌🔥
For everyone else that actually liked English class growing up, doesn't modern adulthood in 2026 just seem like big ol letdown?
I'm positing this after recently re-watching Sideways 🍷(2004), and recalling the feelings I had watching as a teenager of "oh, so this is what adulthood is." It's like using fancy words, and being generally well-read, etc (obvi I was a Miles guy). I was also a big fan of early Kevin Smith, where those characters also spoke intelligently, albeit while also having a kind of slacker, anti-ambition bent.
Now in 2026, it's gobsmacking how little value having a developed vocabulary or being well-read is--- both professionally (pssht forget it) and societally (0% societal cachet).
As a high schooler who actually liked reading literature and writing about it, and writing creatively- it feels like a complete letdown. It's even funny to look back at being forced to study SAT words and how little this kind of knowledge grafts onto any kind of adulthood importance/value. I should have been learning how to unclog a drain; at least then that could have saved me a couple hundred bucks over my lifetime.
No profound way to close this rant. Just a bummer. A funny bummer. Anyone else feel the same way?
My school had a tradition of dressing the Kindergarteners as Native Americans for Thanksgiving. Here I am in 2001. Anyone else have this experience?
I would definitely not allow my kids to do this today, but apparently this was totally appropriate back then. My husband even did something similar in his kindergarten class and we didn't go to the same school district. Yikes!
A Shel Silverstein poem you've probably never read
- The Perfect High -
There once was a boy named Gimmesome Roy.
He was nothing like me or you.
’Cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do.
As a kid, he sat in the cellar, sniffing airplane glue.
And then he smoked bananas –– which was then the thing to do.
He tried aspirin in Coca–Cola, breathed helium on the sly, and his life was just one endless search to find that perfect high.
But grass just made him want to lay back and eat chocolate–chip pizza all night, and the great things he wrote while he was stoned looked like shit in the morning light.
And speed just made him rap all day, reds just laid him back, and Cocaine Rose was sweet to his nose, but the price nearly broke his back.
He tried PCP and THC, but they didn’t quite do the trick, and poppers nearly blew his heart and mushrooms made him sick.
Acid made him see the light, but he couldn’t remember it long.
And hashish was just a little too weak, and smack was a lot too strong, and Quaaludes made him stumble, and booze just made him cry, till he heard of a cat named Baba Fats who knew of the perfect high.
Now, Baba Fats was a hermit cat who lived up in Nepal, high on a craggy mountaintop, up a sheer and icy wall.
"But hell," says Roy, "I’m a healthy boy, and I’ll crawl or climb or fly, but I’ll find that guru who’ll give me the clue as to what’s the perfect high."
So out and off goes Gimmesome Roy to the land that knows no time, up a trail no man could conquer to a cliff no man could climb.
For fourteen years he tries that cliff, then back down again he slides
Then sits –– and cries –– and climbs again, pursuing the perfect high.
He’s grinding his teeth, he’s coughing blood, he’s aching and shaking and weak, as starving and sore and bleeding and tore, he reaches the mountain peak.
And his eyes blink red like a snow–blind wolf, and he snarls the snarl of a rat, as there in perfect repose and wearing no clothes –– sits the godlike Baba Fats.
"What’s happening, Fats?" says Roy with joy, "I’ve come to state my biz.
I hear you’re hip to the perfect trip. Please tell me what it is.
For you can see," says Roy to he, "that I’m about to die, so for my last ride, Fats, how can I achieve the perfect high?"
"Well, dog my cats!" says Baba Fats. "here’s one more burnt–out soul, who’s looking for some alchemist to turn his trip to gold.
But you won’t find it in no dealer’s stash, or on no druggist’s shelf.
Son, if you would seek the perfect high –– find it in yourself."
"Why, you jive motherfucker!" screamed Gimmesome Roy, "I’ve climbed through rain and sleet, I've lost three fingers off my hands and four toes off my feet!
I’ve braved the lair of the polar bear and tasted the maggot’s kiss.
Now, you tell me the high is in myself. What kind of shit is this?
My ears ’fore they froze off," says Roy, "had heard all kind of crap, but I didn’t climb for fourteen years to listen to that sophomore rap.
And I didn’t crawl up here to hear that the high is on the natch, so you tell me where the real stuff is or I’ll kill your guru ass!"
"Ok, OK," says Baba Fats, "you’re forcing it out of me.
There is a land beyond the sun that’s known as Zaboli.
A wretched land of stone and sand where snakes and buzzards scream, and in this devil’s garden blooms the mystic Tzu–Tzu tree.
And every ten years it blooms one flower as white as the Key West sky, and he who eats of the Tzu–Tzu flower will know the perfect high.
For the rush comes on like a tidal wave and it hits like the blazing sun.
And the high, it lasts a lifetime and the down don’t ever come.
But the Zaboli land is ruled by a giant who stands twelve cubits high.
With eyes of red in his hundred heads, he waits for the passers–by.
And you must slay the red–eyed giant, and swim the River of Slime, where the mucous beasts, they wait to feast on those who journey by.
And if you survive the giant and the beasts and swim that slimy sea, there’s a blood–drinking witch who sharpens her teeth as she guards that Tzu–Tzu tree."
"To hell with your witches and giants," laughs Roy.
"To hell with the beasts of the sea. As long as the Tzu–Tzu flower blooms, some hope still blooms for me."
And with tears of joy in his snow–blind eye, Roy hands the guru a five, then back down the icy mountain he crawls, pursuing that perfect high.
"Well, that is that," says Baba Fats, sitting back down on his stone, facing another thousand years of talking to God alone.
"It seems, Lord", says Fats, "it’s always the same, old men or bright–eyed youth, it’s always easier to sell them some shit than it is to give them the truth."
Who else has never bought/leased a new car?
Im 42, I've been driving since I was able to get my license. Over the years, I've bought at least 20 different vehicles all used, but I've never bought a brand new, off the lot car/truck/suv... my wife bought her 2012 Honda civic brand new, and I drive that now every day. Her daily mom mobile is a 2016 GMC Acadia, both rocking ~150k miles. I always run my vehicles till either they die or I have no need for they and sell them off.
The only 2 things "vehicles" I've bought new are an Exmark zero turn mower and a Kubota tractor.
I have absolutely zero reason to change, I can afford a new, yearly lease vehicle through my work, but I still won't. I love working on vehicles, have the shop/tools/equipment to support them, thats my main hobby.
Parenting is 90% trolling your kids....
So my child said to me, "Mom, you know what I want?"
To which I replied, "So tell me what you want, what you really really want?"
My child, however, instead of affirming that they would indeed tell me what they want, what they really really want, simply said, "Really Mom, again?"
Children. Sigh
Breeeee—krrrrrr—shhhhhh—EEEEEE—ka-ka-ka-ka—SKREEEEEE
Teacher asked me what the hardest part of being President would be in 2005.
For context she made me add the second sentence because it was “too sad” otherwise.
I made the local newspaper.
Michelle Trachtenberg would’ve turned 41 years old today. RIP
What was your first Beanie Baby?
I still have mine ^
Magic, the white dragon, gifted to me by an aunt around 1995-1996ish iirc.
Wake up, honey! A new Millennial Eeveelution just dropped
From chasing success to chasing sunlight. Peace is now paramount ✅
There will never be another like you, Windows XP. RIP
Those iconic user photos!