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GenX Women are Sick of This Shit!
GenX Women are Sick of This Shit is a nostalgic nod to the humans of GenX in the Midwest. Each episode, co-hosts Megan Bennett and Lesley Meier, have an ADHD driven conversation about GenX history and pop culture using their own lives and experiences growing up in Indianapolis as the backdrop. The podcast is a creative project inspired by the Facebook group 'GenX Women are Sick of This Shit', created by Megan Bennett in 2023. "Five Minutes of Fame" stories and "Dear GenX Women" letters are sent in by listeners and members of the Facebook group and are shared with consent. The original Facebook group is a mosh pit of menopausal women talking about all things GenX culture and life in the 70s, 80s and 90s as well as being a GenXer today. GenX Women are Sick of This Shit is part of Latchkey Kids Media, LLC where we make things we like because we want to. Copyright 2025, Latchkey Kids Media, LLC
GenX Women are Sick of This Shit!
A Gen X After School Special: Grab your Garanimals & Lunch Boxes! It's Labor Day Weekend!
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Remember when summer vacation actually lasted until Labor Day? When your biggest back-to-school worry wasn't active shooter drills but whether your Trapper Keeper matched your folders? We're diving deep into the nostalgia of Gen X school experiences this week as we honor the passing of Loni Anderson and reflect on the holiday weekend that once marked the true end of summer.
Our conversation meanders through the hallowed halls of department stores past – from Lazarus to Montgomery Ward, from Air-way to the early days of Target when we all thought "what a dumb name." We unpack the critical importance of metal lunchboxes adorned with our favorite TV characters, those big pink erasers that never quite worked, and the wide-rule paper with its blue lines and dotted middle line that guided our early handwriting attempts.
The Garanimals clothing system perfectly encapsulates the self-sufficient nature of our generation: "Match your animals, get a Pop-Tart, get to the bus, and I'll see you at 3 o'clock." This hands-off approach to childhood would horrify many modern parents, but it was simply the norm for us latchkey kids. We compare our half-day kindergarten experiences (complete with mandatory nap time!) to today's academic pressure cooker that somehow starts in July.
For Gen X parents who've navigated the vastly different back-to-school landscape with our own children, this episode offers a comforting reminder that we survived and thrived with far less structure and supervision. So whether you were the kid with the perfectly organized Trapper Keeper or the one desperately trying to hide that you hadn't done your homework, this episode will transport you back to a time when school started after Labor Day and summer actually felt like summer.
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I'm Megan Bennett, I'm Leslie Meyer and this is Gen X. Women Are Sick of this Shit.
Speaker 2:Hi Leslie.
Speaker 3:Hi, megan. Hi, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing pretty well this week Nice.
Speaker 2:Are you gearing up for a nice?
Speaker 3:long weekend. Yeah, I mean it's gonna be a long weekend and I hope that it will be nice, but we don't have any particular like plans for the weekend. It is the holiday weekend. It is it's Labor Day Labor Day.
Speaker 2:Which means that there are cookouts and you know, I presume bonfires and stuff like that happening everywhere, right?
Speaker 3:Of course, sure. I think it's like people's last hurrah at local water spots.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, people that water, If the weather is, if it's not false fall right.
Speaker 3:It is false fall right now. It's been like in the 70s all week.
Speaker 2:I'm not complaining.
Speaker 3:Great, but also like it'd be nice if it warmed up a little bit this weekend. I think it can wait a little while.
Speaker 2:It's okay, because I want to stretch it out as much as possible.
Speaker 3:so we don't have winter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can avoid that, like ever.
Speaker 3:It'll be hot at the end of October Because kids are sweating in their costumes for Halloween and getting chased by bees, which I find wildly amusing Because I don't have to worry about it anymore. That's very mean.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm just observing, I'm just standing back with a bowl of candy on my porch, laughing at children Pretty much, run, run. You should run faster.
Speaker 3:So our Labor Day weekend we are recording this podcast.
Speaker 2:I know it's fun. I'm glad that we are here. It's a good time.
Speaker 3:Do you have any other? Do you have any like recreational?
Speaker 2:plans? No, not really. It's going to be a pretty chill weekend and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 3:Amazing. It's just, yeah, just relaxing we're going to be. I'm going to be hanging out here for 12 hours waiting for the gas company tomorrow. Jesus, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:Sometime between 8 am and 8 am and 8 pm.
Speaker 3:They will come to the house. Last time I was here, you were waiting for the electric company electric company
Speaker 2:to be here I feel like maybe and I could be wrong you're living in a money pit.
Speaker 3:I'm looking for a date? Uh, the gas company, because if it was the milkman, you? Know, sure, yeah, that was the path uh, the gas company is coming because they said, hey, doesn't look like you used any gas in July. And I was like, well, no, of course I didn't, fuckers, because I have a gas furnace and it's July, and why would I have that on?
Speaker 3:It's a thousand degrees outside. My spouse reminded me that we now have a gas stove and I was like, oh, oh. So I wrote back and said, said, oops, like a senior citizen. And so they, they took you at your word and you could have just like pushed it off for like because I think I've gotten that in the past, like we really do we did not have any other gas appliances for a long time, so we would have nothing in the summer, because it's not right. But it was like literally zero, and I was like, well, maybe there should be a little bit. And then he reminded me of that.
Speaker 2:I just feel like maybe this is a problem with the gas company that they sort of like yeah, yeah, so they're gonna take you at the word and change the meter.
Speaker 3:Okay, they're gonna come and do that they'll probably charge you a lot for it. No, it's no, it's free.
Speaker 1:It's outside, it's their business okay their shit broke, so that's not me, that's outside, it's their business. Okay, their shit broke.
Speaker 3:So that's not me, that's good. And the other thing was a storm fell on a, you know, storm tree power line.
Speaker 2:We had to get that all fixed that was a good time, so everything's been outside so far, yeah.
Speaker 3:So far.
Speaker 2:So far, so good. That's great Knocking on the wood wood, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 3:Uh, what are we going to talk about?
Speaker 2:today we're kind of doing like an after school special. Yes, today this is a abbreviated version, because it's labor day weekend and you all should be out enjoying your friends and family and doing cool stuff. Yep, you don't listen to us for too long, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3:Uh, there is one notable death. Yes, that talk to me goose happened in the last couple of weeks. Uh, lonnie anderson died. Uh, lonnie anderson she was great is prominent in most of our childhoods, if you are a gen xer um. She played I didn't know this character's last name, jennifer jennifer marlow, on wprp in cincinnati. She died on August 3rd. She was 79. She had been ill for a long time that show.
Speaker 2:First of all, the show magnificent, flawless. Loved everything about it, like. I grew up watching that show. Yes, a lot, because my mom worked in the radio station world.
Speaker 1:And so it was like just kind of a thing yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was funny because mom would come home we'd watch the show she, it's just kind of a thing. Yeah, and it was funny because mom would come home we'd watch the show.
Speaker 3:She'd be like yep just like that.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 3:It's a mess, just like that, and like I thought DJs were so fucking important when I was a kid. Oh, we all did Because of that show. Yeah well, you are important DJs.
Speaker 2:They were very important because radio was so important Absolutely. That was like, you know, they were stars, and it's sad that we don't have that now, I think, because not in quite the same way.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I mean, you have satellite radio and you have, you know, the people who host that and stuff like that, but all of our local like.
Speaker 3:There are some local guys, sure, sure, but it's not the like. You know who's going to be on every like four to six hours and you're counting on like wolfman jack right, yep, exactly, yeah, no, we just don't have that anymore dr johnny fever. There was a, a local radio station. Do you remember this one? It was like super small bruce.
Speaker 2:The radio pirate was yes yep, and see, if we talk to my mom about this she would. She could go into great detail about all of the local that would be amazing like the local voices and stuff.
Speaker 3:Maybe we should do that sometime. So funny, let's get her on like riverside or something. Yeah that would be a super local that'd be cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was cool. I grew up hanging out in those radio stations like playing with the, playing with the cards which were, you know, basically like the. They called them cards, but they were the tapes. Oh, yeah, so you'd like put the tapes in for commercials? And things like that. Yeah, and they literally you know big vinyl turntables and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:That's how things were done back then. Actual records, yeah, so so great. But that show was brilliant and her character was so fun because she was such a feminist in a time when, yeah, television feminism wasn't really you know, yeah thing, and her character was like I don't do, I, I don't make coffee I don't take dictation I don't you know, she was like fuck that shit. She ran the whole place yep that's awesome and those were.
Speaker 3:That's what we grew up with and that was quite empowered compared to maybe like what our parents grew up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, of course she's married to bururt Reynolds right For many years. Oh, pretty sure.
Speaker 3:Pretty sure, I believe you. Pretty sure back in the day that feels accurate Producer, tim is nodding at me. They feel like they match, like they go together.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're cutie pies together.
Speaker 3:They were married in 1988, wow oh, that's much. Well, I mean that's when they married.
Speaker 2:So to me it's only 1990 something, so that seems like it was just days ago of course um, and evidently they had quite a messy divorce, but we don't need to go into that.
Speaker 3:Iconic 80s couple Love that. So there you go.
Speaker 2:So we are going to talk, I think, about back to school and Labor Day and just this time of the year because I know there are a lot of people out there who are listening, who have kids that have just gone back to school. It's interesting to think about how their back to school is so different from what our back to school was like in the 70s or early 80s, depending on where you fall on the Gen X scale. But yeah, so that's kind of what we're going to chit chat about.
Speaker 2:And you I think had done a little bit of diving about the history of Labor Day. By diving you mean Sk hell diving you mean skimming you were skimming.
Speaker 3:A quick search on the internet, yeah um, yeah, I mean it's always good to be reminded, like, why we have the holidays that we have and to know the history of them. Uh, labor day is a federal holiday in the united states. It's the first monday of September. The date can change.
Speaker 3:It does indeed just your spouse's birthday to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements in the United States, so related to trade unions and labor movements that grew in the beginning of the 19th century.
Speaker 2:Super cool. You know the people who kept us from losing arms and making our children go work in factories Workplace safety, osha, basic kind of worker rights.
Speaker 3:These things are really important.
Speaker 2:Not having to work seven days a week, yeah 12 hours, 24 hours yes, whatever you know.
Speaker 3:24 hours yes, whatever you know, just modicums of safety.
Speaker 2:Making sure that if you were working in a I don't know a shirtwaist factory, that it wouldn't catch on fire and kill everybody because you were bolted in the door or the door was bolted and you couldn't get out. Stuff like that.
Speaker 3:That's very specific. Well, yes, no, I don't.
Speaker 2:But, yes, like so, we should be celebrating all of that and the fact that we have laws in place that protect us.
Speaker 3:Hopefully, will, for a while, continue to have said laws. I don't know about the, I just read. I mean yeah, why wouldn't it have happened this way? As late as the 1930s unions were encouraging workers to strike to make sure that they got the day off. So there you go. Yeah, grover Cleland signed the bill into law on June 28th.
Speaker 2:Good for him. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3:Groverland signed the bill into law on June 28th. Good for him. Yeah, thank you, grover.
Speaker 2:Which is a great name, and I bet he didn't love cookies. I bet he didn't know he was going to be a Muppet A Muppet, I don't know why. I was having that thought too. And you said cookies, but Grover didn't like cookies.
Speaker 3:Oh, I know that's Cookie Monster. Grover likes to give hugs. Grover is a hugger.
Speaker 2:Grover is a monster. He is. Do you remember that book?
Speaker 3:The Monster at the End of the Book.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, what a great book.
Speaker 3:Yes, I do. It's so good. Everybody should read that. Pick that up, read that book Labor. Day Holidays, it'll bring you joy. Did you do stuff on the Labor Day holiday, kind of end of summer situation?
Speaker 2:Not really. I feel like we were. That was about the time that we were going back to school back in the day, when you used to go back to school around Labor Day and I don't know that we really were. I feel like everything was kind of winding down. So it was like you were home from vacation. You were.
Speaker 2:You know you had made your run to airway you know, pre-target um and picked up your school supplies and you were kind of just I don't know, just kind of like getting that last couple days of sitting on your butt watching tv hanging out yeah that's pretty fair.
Speaker 3:I think maybe we would have like family down sometimes. We definitely went back after. I think it was often like the Monday after Labor Day, so we maybe had like a whole week so we would maybe have family down to hang out during the like the brief years when we had like a kind of a pool situation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or I would go visit my grandmother over that weekend because she would be the one to take me shopping for back to school clothes, and we would go to the mall, to the Sears and Roebuck and pick up stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I kind of remember, like asking what my budget was, oh nice.
Speaker 2:How much could I?
Speaker 3:spend so that I could like shop for back to school clothes.
Speaker 2:I do remember that. Yeah, my grandmother would take me to Lazarus.
Speaker 3:Ooh, or Blocks, oh yeah Back in the day H&R Block. No, that's tax. What was Blocks W?
Speaker 2:Yep Williams, something W8. No, w something block.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, you keep talking and I'll find it. I W something block. You keep talking and I'll find it.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to keep saying it. William H, there we go, boom. I can't remember where I parked my car, but I can almost remember that, yeah, so blocks was cool and that was like LSA was another you know, you said airway Montgomery Ward. Remember Montgomery Ward? Did we have?
Speaker 3:one in New York. We did, we did. Where was it? East side? Yeah, you know. He said Montgomery, montgomery Ward, remember Montgomery, did we have one? We did, we did. Yeah, on the east side.
Speaker 2:There was one at Washington.
Speaker 3:Square.
Speaker 2:I feel like there was also one in Castleton, but anyway, that makes sense. But yeah, montgomery Ward yeah, airway was pre-target.
Speaker 3:I remember that we lived kind of like up in the Nora area hyper local hyper specific, yeah, um, and in that like nora shopping mall area where target is now. I remember when, like, airway closed and the first target went in yep and it had to no, not airway because I was like what is target? And we mean, it was just so dumb.
Speaker 2:And then we were like that's dumb.
Speaker 3:What is Target? But that is, that is the sign and the price tags were had. The name was in green.
Speaker 2:Yes, words are really hard. Today, everything was in. It was green and they were like perforated somehow, which I mean, oh yeah, you would do like, so people wouldn't tag switch yes, but yeah like well kmart is your airway memories, local indianapolis people kmart was another one right like people would shop at kmart for all the things back before kmart went yeah, belly up too, so I just love.
Speaker 3:Oh god, look at that look at that. That's a beautiful airway sign oh, that was really exciting, sorry, okay, we're gonna just talk about airway for six hours and about half a percent of people are going to care about I don't know.
Speaker 2:It depends on how big it was, like I'd be curious oh, that's national or whatever I, I know it's not international, but it might have been national. Anywho, yeah, this is all pre-Walmart taking over the whole wide world too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, fuck Walmart. So we would shop for clothes. School supplies Absolutely. Do you remember what kinds of school supplies? Well, you get a list.
Speaker 2:Sure, you know of the things that you had to have, which I know. When my daughter was young, we still we had the list too.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:But you had to get. You know, you had to get a certain type of paper and it was loose leaf at the time, like wide rule loose leaf paper. Yes, wow, that would have like the blue lines and the little dot line in between.
Speaker 3:Especially kindergarten, first grade, because we were learning print and cursive. That's right.
Speaker 2:So you'd have to like be able to like do your printing and your cursiving With the big pencils like kind of fatter pencils. Little fatter pencils so they're a little bit easier on our For your little baby fat fingers.
Speaker 3:For our fine motor skills. Did you get report? Well, this is a little bit after school started. Do Did you get report? Well, this is a little bit after school started. Do you remember getting report cards in kindergarten?
Speaker 2:So all of my report cards were dreadful All of them, I don't remember. I guess I'm sure I had Because kindergarten was different.
Speaker 3:It was just like S and U. You were like satisfactory and unsatisfactory. Yes, because you were learning like literally. I've looked at them and it's just like basic skills, it's like fine motor skills. Can you like count to 10? Do you get along with others?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just super basic stuff?
Speaker 3:Right, they were not. We were not having to learn.
Speaker 2:But we even I remember in, even in elementary school we had that still Like, we had the satisfactory and the unsatisfactory for for some things, and then other things were like a, like a number grade oh or a a plus a minus yeah, I didn't get those until like high school, but that's because I went to montessori school, so everything was like oh yeah, subjective, yeah, so first they were careful with your sensibilities. They wanted to make sure that you were.
Speaker 3:It was all like Well taken care of mentally. Oh fuck, no, Not overly judged.
Speaker 2:We were so fucked up there.
Speaker 3:They were just like. You. All can just figure it out. Kids are independent learners. They'll organize themselves. That went great. It was so fucked up but, kindergarten first and second, I still I was in like a traditional elementary school so I had like the little yeah you know, have you learned how not to like eat your neighbor's boogers today?
Speaker 2:please stop eating glue yeah, that kind of basic stuff. Yeah, I, mine was always written. Well, you, you, because it would written. There would be something written on the back from the teacher where they would you know, criticize you for being distracting and overly talkative.
Speaker 2:Shocker, it's deeply personal. I'm just saying this is this is what mine look like, and then, and then there'd be a space for, like your parents, to respond. Oh, you know, I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find them, and I'm sure what it says is yep, that sounds like her this is accurate well done, teacher good luck she's your fucking problem. I don't know what you're. I don't know what you're bitching at me about. You get her all day fixer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, luckily you were just fine I turned out okay, um, so early school days, everything was different. I mean, you know, in terms of supplies, it was like big pencils and crayons yeah, you had to have the big pink eraser yes, your big fat pink eraser absolutely um, and then there'd be the things that you want right, oh, okay like I.
Speaker 2:You know I'm thinking like a fancy new lunchbox, you know based on whatever the current trend was because it mattered absolutely oh yeah, what was on your lunchbox fucking mattered yes, I remember that.
Speaker 3:I remember being so perplexed when my kids were old enough to go to school because lunchboxes had gotten so small and plastic and the thermoses had gotten tiny and like when you and I went to school it was like a reasonable adult lunchbox with an adult size thermos that like a grown tall human being could take with an adequate amount of food, and so you could have like soup.
Speaker 3:You could put soup in your lunch, yes, of a proportion that might actually feed you Right. And that was not true later on, when our children went to school.
Speaker 2:I was glad to see sort of a little resurgence of the metal lunchbox.
Speaker 3:For sure.
Speaker 2:Because that was a big deal.
Speaker 3:Do you remember any of your lunchboxes? I don't really. I can make some assumptions, but I don't really remember.
Speaker 2:I remember really wanting a Star Wars lunchbox.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:I don't think I had one, and if I did, I'm really mad that I don't now Right, yeah fuck that.
Speaker 3:It would be worth like a billion dollars if you could have it, but yeah, I can't remember I can't remember, but I know I had them Like. I know my brother had a Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:The TV classics. We've unpacked the Dukes of Hazzard a bit, but it was of the time, also had the plastic car.
Speaker 1:so I do remember that and I'm sure I probably had like, maybe like a nancy drew, kind of like lunchbox or potentially like holly hobby.
Speaker 3:I maybe I had kind of situation really tracking, like that feels sort of right and then like maybe the cassidy's okay, I don't know what show it would have been if it was the hardy boys, if the cassidys were on that, but it was probably like okay. Well, in fact, I mean kindergarten I only went for a half day because we didn't we didn't have yet, we only had a half day kindergarten you went am or pm, so you would eat lunch either right when you got home or you would eat lunch right before you went to school.
Speaker 3:That's right, yep. So at best we would get to go and get like milk, that's a little you get a cookie milk thing and a snack and we still had fucking nap time half day. Kindergarten still got a nap. I miss naps, oh no and you had to do it like well, it was part of your satisfactory. Really didn't, really didn't like it back then?
Speaker 2:No, and if somebody would have said to you right if somebody said to you someday when you're 54 years old, you're going to look back and think, damn, I wish I could have a nap at work.
Speaker 3:So that's kind of elementary school, yes, but middle school whole different vibe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't really like the elementary school stuff. I don't really like the elementary school stuff. I don't know. My memory is just so, so bad. But, I you know like by the time we hit middle school and high school, that's when, like the trapper keeper became a thing.
Speaker 3:Yes, you had to start to get organized. You needed a trapper keeper, much less handholding. And mine had a cat on it.
Speaker 2:Oh, right on, I remember the cat was black and white stripe kind of cat. It was super cute. Yeah, I'm just like purple on the outside. Wow, I hear that I could remember that's super specific.
Speaker 3:I had a green one.
Speaker 2:I remember it was kind of green did it have pictures on it?
Speaker 3:I think it was just plain, really no, I like to green. You wouldn't have a plain one?
Speaker 2:I'm sure I stuck shit in it but I feel like you probably put stickers on it too and that might have been high school, because I went to montessori school, sure, everything was weird right, I definitely had a lunchbox, but I don't think I had a backpack and everything just stayed Like we had cubbies, so everything stayed there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I didn't have to do like the back and forth.
Speaker 2:I mean you just had to carry all your shit around. You had to carry all your shit around at least in my school and it was. So the trapper keeper was important. I'm sure I never used it to its full capacity. I probably it was more of a status thing, right Like I've got a trapper because that would imply that I'm taking my homework home. No, I am not, but I have a trapper keeper.
Speaker 3:That would imply that, like you were organizing things no, I was not, I was ADD, oh, but you didn't have that one though.
Speaker 2:No, that is super cute. But no, I feel like it was just one big cat on the front, like a kitten.
Speaker 3:There's a me data center. It's pretty cute. I'm going to.
Speaker 1:We're going to find it at some point.
Speaker 2:We're going to find my Trapper Keeper. Here's that kitten one. See, I feel like you would like that one because it's green, this lovely pre-owned Trapper Keeper. Guess what that's probably not too far off of what the original ticket price was, Because I remember. I mean maybe not, but I remember, I do remember that one though.
Speaker 3:Do you remember that? Holy shit, that's so easy, because I can't stand it, so vintage Trapper Keeper.
Speaker 2:Killing me Blinder Glow.
Speaker 3:This one, yes, palm trees and bad sunsets and terrible photography, our listening audience, we're like pointing, they are.
Speaker 2:The ones that Leslie has found are like geometric shapes, 80s very triangles of pink and blue and yellow and it looks like Max Headroom is going to like pop right through those suckers. Palm trees and a sunset yes, that's a little Miami Vice-y through those suckers Palm trees in a sunset. Yes, that's a little Miami Vice-y.
Speaker 3:It's pretty good. Here's a bundle, yeah, bubbles, oh yeah. The coordinating folder notebook situation. Yes, did you ever work through?
Speaker 2:that you had to have folders. All the folders you would get had holes in them so you could put them in your trapper keeper. For you would get had holes in them so you could put them in your trapper for sure, right, and then you would have, like an extra. You could buy a little pencil bag, oh yeah, where you could put that inside your trapper keeper and that would give you places for pencils, but also for stickers and erasers and fidgety things that you would have like those little dudes that would sit on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would go on top of your pencil that you would like rub. I totally remember those.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and then his hair would go, man our teachers just really must have despised us.
Speaker 3:I would spend a significant amount of time matching my folders to my notebook covers and then to the trap. Like each class had, like a Wow. Specific folder with a matching or coordinating notebook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would start that way, and yeah.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I'd be like, well, this is going to be my math folder. No, no, it was not. This will be my English folder no. I'm just lucky to have a folder and shit might or might not come home and might or might not go back to school I had the greatest of intentions, I'm still a little bit like that with office supplies. I'm like, oh, I really need this because it's going to magically make me the most organized person on the planet uh, journals in a new calendar nothing like the promise of a nice organizer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nope that never happens, will not happen so I remember all of those things like school supply situation elementary school you'd have.
Speaker 2:Did you have a pencil box?
Speaker 3:yes, we would have like in our desk. Everybody had a desk. Yes, we had a room with our teacher yes and then inside that metal desk with, like the wooden lid that you would lift up. We had, like they were more like fiberboard, like cardboard yeah, pencil boxes, and you could get different ones, so all your shit would be in there yeah, I remember ours was long and green, long and green cardboard that you just kind of pop the top off of oh, everybody had to have the.
Speaker 2:Y'all had the same ones yeah, yeah, and I feel like I don't. I don't think they were given to us at school. Maybe they were. Well, we had, I think you and I mentioned you and I were talking about this we had in elementary school.
Speaker 3:We had an elementary school bookstore yeah, so like that sounds so cool we didn't have that.
Speaker 2:I mean, it really was not a big deal. It was like a window, that, or like a door that had like a top door that would open and you could walk up and you could. You could buy different things that were in the bookstore.
Speaker 3:Did, like your school secretary, run it, or who was like the boss of it, maybe or was? It like the older like sixth grader or sixth graders. They would have been older, maybe I don't know, somebody was always back there.
Speaker 2:I don't know who it was. Maybe teachers took turns, I can't remember. But but yeah, they'd have like erasers and they'd have pencils and they'd have pencil boxes and they'd have.
Speaker 3:You know all the shit that you couldn't get like screamed at or shamed or chastised for, like, not having your pencil, you could just go fucking buy another one.
Speaker 2:You could go buy another pencil yeah.
Speaker 3:And they were probably like 10 cents or something reasonable.
Speaker 2:I think they were probably like 10 cents and if you needed like the little like eraser toppers of different colors, like they, were pointy on the end.
Speaker 3:Because, inevitably, like as soon as you started using that pencil, that little pink eraser, just like, oh, it was gone.
Speaker 2:yeah, that wasn't gonna work, but the yeah, you'd get the and and little pencil topper erasers never really actually worked either, so that was like always.
Speaker 3:Well, sometimes they were really hard yeah we should just dissect the science of pencil top erasers, the whole thing. We were talking about clothes and it made me remember Garanimals. Oh, I loved Garanimals and just like how easy the world was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you matched your panda bear with your panda bear when.
Speaker 3:Garanimals existed and I think Sears sold Garanimals. I feel like that's kind of true.
Speaker 2:They still exist. We were not Sears shoppers. We were like Lazarus shoppers. We were like Lazarus shoppers. I feel like they were in the little kids' store at.
Speaker 3:Lazarus.
Speaker 2:But that would I mean that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be at other places too.
Speaker 3:It was kind of all the same big giant department store to me because I was two feet tall, so you would get your.
Speaker 2:yeah, you would put your your panda bear with your panda bear or your raccoon with your raccoon, and you'd be magically dressed Gosh.
Speaker 3:And you could dress yourself.
Speaker 1:I told you, I just pulled up a commercial for it. I remember that.
Speaker 3:Yes, and it was like life was just all laid out. I just thought it was going to be color coded like that for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:I mean, okay, so let's talk about Grannimals real quick, because it is so. So, gen X, I can't stand it, because nothing says like parents that just didn't have time to fuck with you, like giving you clothes that you could just self-match right, like you could figure this shit out yourself. Here you go, put your animals together, get dressed get to the bus.
Speaker 3:Look at the tags. Who sold her animals in the 70s? It was Sears and JCPenney. Jcpenney.
Speaker 2:There you go Both. So match your animals, get a Pop-Tart, uh-huh, get the fuck to the bus, yep, and I'll see you at 4 o'clock.
Speaker 3:And I'll see you later, purposefully not getting my breakfast together. I think we might've talked about this already at one point, but we're at the point where we're going to maybe start to repeat ourselves, because it's been a full calendar year plus.
Speaker 3:But like kindergarten, first, second and I was like stirring the eggs, so I could have been five, six or seven, I don't know. So I was left on the counter like plopped up on the counter. I had a spatula and I was. They were on low. Yeah, I'm stirring the eggs. My mom was trying to deal with my brother to like get me. I don't know what was going on, but I remember hearing the bus come down the road, stirring really slowly and really hoping that my mom didn't hear the bus, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:I fucking missed that bus. Like my mom, I knew it was there. I knew the bus. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:I fucking missed that bus. I knew it was there. I knew the bus was there.
Speaker 3:I'm just taking my sweet time I heard it and we lived in the middle of nowhere, so it's like coming down the road and I'm just like and you were like, that's a stay home day. Leslie, did you did the bus come? Did you miss the bus? And I was like I just I didn't hear it.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure she drove my ass to school, but I'm sure. But you were late and you missed something that you probably didn't want to be at. I didn't want to walk Our driveway was long, it was cold.
Speaker 3:I didn't want to walk out there.
Speaker 2:I was already cooking the eggs. You just figured you might be able to get away with it and stay home.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I was a creative thinker like that let's.
Speaker 2:I Love Lucy, and just sit on the sofa, there we go. That's what would have happened. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so what else? Stickers were big, oh my gosh Sticker collections.
Speaker 3:That was middle school right, mostly stickers, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I remember getting stickers on assignments?
Speaker 3:Probably Mr Yuck stickers based on on my grades. Talk about a gen x childhood throwback mystery, yeah, and the poison center and all the stickers and like having to label everything. It was like a family event.
Speaker 2:I feel like I need a mr yuck sticker tattoo. I feel like that needs to happen. Um, but like you would trade stickers with friends, yeah, you'd get them on your assignments oh yeah, well, you get like a little happy scratch and sniff sticker or something. If you did well, did you have photo albums?
Speaker 2:filled with stickers I was not a photo album full of sticker person. I would like put them on stuff. Oh okay, unless they were a fantastic sticker, and then it would never get stuck on anything, which defeated the entire purpose of a sticker.
Speaker 3:But you don't know where you want it to go yes. And once you put it on there it can't come out.
Speaker 2:It was there forever and yes, so somewhere there's, you know, piles of stickers in the universe that have never been stuck.
Speaker 3:I know my albums eventually went into the garbage, but I collected.
Speaker 2:Did you Like the scratchy?
Speaker 3:ones or like whatever, all stickers.
Speaker 2:Okay, Hologram stickers like different styles. See, those were the ones I could not part with either.
Speaker 3:So I had binders, oh, stickers. Yeah, that probably all died like in eighth grade, because I doubt I would have gone to high school and admitted that, but prior to that yeah, if they were rainbowy and holograms and stuff like that, I would have been. Puffy stickers. Oh see All of those Stickers with like liquid in the inside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't yes, they would never, get stuck Never. I mean, I'd probably be like one of the weird kids who would like I'm going to tape it on and then it's there, but not really Temporarily, and then back to school.
Speaker 3:So the time for back to school for us was mostly after Labor Day, but was it the same in high school? Did we start going back a little bit earlier, I think things started to get a little.
Speaker 2:yeah, I don't remember. I feel, at least for me. I feel like it was more in August then.
Speaker 1:And that was probably just.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was probably just because, just like school calendars were changing at that point. And they probably figured that's way too long. The kids are out of school. We need to make sure that they are getting their scores up whatever, and started to put more emphasis on that kind of thing that's my, that's my guess I I mean, this is our, you know, gen expert, not an expert.
Speaker 3:This is when we bullshit and it sounds like I think and fewer lunch boxes, unless you wanted to bring your lunch because you could go to the cafeteria and get better things like french fries and honey, buns and coke yes, exactly all those things. Yep, yeah, that was pretty much what it, and then clothes were still kind of a thing, but like less so like there'd be a couple things I'd have to get, but I was like a thrift store, vintage, weirdo dresser.
Speaker 2:Well, same that, but I think. But I would say like it's not about going to the store and getting like the latest fashion so much as it's like anti-fashion stuff and exactly you and I were kind of like right, right, except there would be like a couple of pairs of jeans.
Speaker 3:Like I still bought gas jeans. I had like a pair because yes of course, because they were 47 million dollars.
Speaker 2:There's jordash. No, it wasn't jordash, just probably guess I don't know but I had always had like a big bubble butt, so like none of those pants fit me.
Speaker 3:It was really disappointing. Stick.
Speaker 2:Stick clothes. Yep, I always, and of course always thought I was the fattest kid in the world.
Speaker 3:Oh my God. And then you look at pictures and you're like I was so tiny.
Speaker 2:I was a stick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yep For sure, oh pressure, sure, oh pressure. I think that's all the things with back to school oh, you were asking about back to school, though, in the group I was. Yes, did anybody have anything to share that they thought was like super specific about?
Speaker 2:um, so just, you know, mostly like folks were kind of the same type of thing that we were talking about. Uh, people would get stomach aches over literally what to wear, which I could see that there's a lot of pressure especially like that first freaking day when you're walking in and you're like I had the whole summer to like be the cool kid. Now Right, you know, and like that's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 3:Definitely, freshman year was like that.
Speaker 2:We had one kid Less, so later we had one kid in our neighborhood and he was growing up.
Speaker 2:he was the nerdiest kid in the whole world like this kid for years would go to school with a briefcase like super, like the nerdy kid. Okay, that nerdy kid one summer like went through it and came back to school the next year as the biggest heavy metal headbanging kid you have ever seen in your whole life. I was like you fucking rocked it. You discarded that briefcase and now you are Eddie Munson and it was rocking. Did he get hot?
Speaker 3:No, oh, okay, right on. Which was you know? He just got fucking cool, but he got cool.
Speaker 1:He got an attitude. I understood. No, oh okay, right on. Which was? You know, he just got fucking cool.
Speaker 2:But he got cool, he got, he was like got an attitude I understood he was like fuck this briefcase and fuck these glasses, and now I am a heavy metal kid, uh, yeah. So lots of people talking about the their first outfit and school supplies and, uh, school pictures, which we will have to do, oh, a whole pod on school pictures, which we will have to do a whole pod on school pictures.
Speaker 3:That was a thing, that was a big thing. Okay, so yeah. And then our, maybe briefly, just the differences, like what we experienced as Gen X moms of children who went to school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3:First of all, they went back to school in bugging July. Yeah, well, yeah, late, early, early August, yeah, for sure I remember a July 31st start date at one point and I was like I'm sorry, it's 900 degrees outside.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, we're on vacation. Yeah, oh yeah, fuck this. Yeah, no definitely, I remember. I'm going to tell a story now about my daughter. I remember when my daughter went to kindergarten and met her kindergarten teacher the first time and it was a little Catholic school and she walked in and they had, I may have told, told you the story before they had like the alphabet on the wall all the way around, like with different animals and meeting different things, oh no, no.
Speaker 3:But that makes me okay, reminds me of something from kindergarten.
Speaker 2:She walked up, looked up at the frog and said I know the F word Was like and this is my daughter and this is her kindergarten teacher and it was spectacular. That's amazing and her dad and I've never been so proud you were like, yes, yeah, the alphabet part reminded me.
Speaker 3:I think that was pretty much my kindergarten curriculum was all based on the alphabet the whole year. We just just like each unit was like this is a and we learned a bunch of shit to do with a because I remember that like they would put up the letters with each new year.
Speaker 2:Interesting Okay, all right.
Speaker 3:I just made that pop into my brain. That's cool. And then something else you just said that it was in and out so frigging fast. Oh, that's curses, damn it. Nope, foiled again, yep, again, yep, there we go, thanks menopause.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that you'll remember. Tonight at 3 am, absolutely, I'll text you I'll be like it was this like I 'll be awake, yeah, so back to school here we are and guess what we're not doing? Going fucking back to school no, never, ever, ever again, never um, good luck to all you, yeah, good job, good job moms still doing it.
Speaker 3:You're kicking ass and it's a fucking scary time to have kids in school and we're sorry about all of that. Sucks.
Speaker 2:But and then there's parents that are out there that are sending their kids off to college. Yep, that's hard too. Yeah, been there sucks lots of tears. Yeah, lots of walking into empty bedrooms.
Speaker 3:They're like shit it sounds like an 80s video, just like, but it's like written by women in their mid-50s just sobbing going through a room and also simultaneously cheering and redecorating. I love that there's both, and we could probably game around about this for a while, but we should go have a cookout. Yeah, sure, are you doing that? I?
Speaker 2:don't know. No, I know Our neighbors are out of town and they said we could use their hot tub, so we're going to go do that Nice.
Speaker 3:Yes, ma'am, go hang out outside and enjoy the weather. I'll probably do a little bit of that tonight myself. Recommended Hardcore recommended. Happy Labor Day y'all. Keep safe, Don't do anything too stupid. Enjoy the end of summer concerts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like the dawn of spooky season almost.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have a really cool Halloween decoration that you picked up for me I'm super excited about it, it's really fun, and then we'll just find something else to talk about next time, sounds good. See you later, gator. After a while, crocodile, you have been listening to Gen X. Women Are Sick of this Shit. Hey Megan, hey Leslie, what do people do if they want to find us?
Speaker 1:Well, we have a website that people can find us on, and that is genxwomenpodcom. We also have a Facebook page. We have an Instagram account as well. We have a YouTube account where we put YouTube shorts and other little tidbits up there. We have a TikTok account. I don't talk the dick or tick the tock. You don't tick the tock, I barely talk the tick. But I did put a TikTok up. We're explaining the internet to people. That's okay, though it's great.
Speaker 3:We need to know how the internet works.
Speaker 1:Can people buy merch? They absolutely can. We have a merch store on the website itself, and we also have an Etsy store too, so it's just pretty easy to find. It's just Gen X Women on Etsy.
Speaker 3:And if you are listening to this podcast, presumably you found it somewhere. And while you're there, give us a review. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let us know what you think. Throw some stars at us, that'd be great. We'll take one, two, three, four or five, ooh, five, maybe ten. And also make sure that you are hitting subscribe so that you're notified whenever a new episode drops. Most important, we also have a five minutes of fame that I think we should tell people about too.
Speaker 3:Hell, yes, we want to know your stories, your five minutes of fame stories. You can send those stories in on the website or you can call 1-888-GEN-X-POD and leave your story for us and we will play it live in our next episode.
Speaker 1:Yep, we'll listen to it on a little red phone, just like Batman. That'd be cool. Let's get a bat phone, a bat phone. I think that's it. I think you're right.
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