No longer being a teenager has started growing on me, the real world is right around the corner and soon I'll have to start acting like an "adult" (my friends will attest to the fact that I'm far from an adult). Now being an adult requires way too much energy and work to be an adult so I'm milking my youth for all that it is worth. I look outside and see kids enjoying their childhood running around and actually smiling, and it has made me think of all the simple aspects of my own childhood. Everyone has read posts about childhood memories, but I decided to point out some of the under-appreciated aspects of my childhood. These are a list of things that aren't on those other "You Know You're a 90's kid" lists.

1) The Satisfaction of Creating an AIM Screen name

The original texting, AIM was how you quickly communicated with friends. Some elementary school kids have cell phones nowadays, but when I was growing up after school you would punch in your screen name and talk to friends about the recent playground fight, or schoolyard hand-holding. Creating a screen name was no easy task, it needed to be creative, but yet people still had to know who you were. Common trends were adding XOXO in your name if you were a girl, and for boys adding the town initials into your name (NA for North Attleboro). My name was roundballfreak12 (I cringe to this day talking about it), round ball because I played baseball and basketball, and 12 because Tom Brady is the GOAT. Might have taken me 20-30 minutes to think of but once I got it over with a boulder was lifted off my shoulders.

2) Making plans over the home phone

Kids today have it easy with their cellphones, but during my childhood, making plans was a time consuming ordeal. First you had to get the okay from mom or dad. This usually required making false promises, "Yes I'll clean my room!," "Yes we will stay in the backyard!," or "Yes we won't jump off the recycling bin so we can dunk." (I cracked a few bins doing my Kobe Bryant impersonations) Then you had to look through the phone book. This was more challenging than it may seem because if there were more than one person with that last name you either had to know the street name or parents first name. So it may have took several trials to get the right number. Finally, you had to wait for your friend to get the approval from their parents. Usually I would lock myself in a quiet room and listen for the quiet voice in the background to say "Go Ahead!" At this point you could rest easy knowing you were about to do hoodrat stuff with your friends.

3) The joy of getting a "Happy Meal"

An American classic for better or worse, getting McDonalds was a treat for the youth of the 90's. It was not an everyday occasion like it may be for today's kids. To this day whenever I go to a McDonalds I feel a sense of defeat as I pull out of the parking lot, but back in my hay day I was overcome with satisfaction. 4 golden nuggets (you have to be some sort of barbarian to eat a McDonalds burger that isn't a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder), a small drink and small fry rounded off with a toy was truly a treat. I remember switching toys with my sister in the car if I received a princess and she got a matchbox car. Today it seems like more and more people rely on the cheap items at McDonalds and the happy meal has truly lost its glamour. Besides due to the recent obesity rates skyrocketing they now offer yogurt or apples, which no child wants when going to McDonalds.

4) Beating "The Oregon Trail"

If you have never played this game you truly are missing out on an American classic.I suggest going to your local Best Buy and picking up a copy. The concept was simple stock up on goods and venture out west without dying. However, it may seem easier said than done as hunger, disease, and other adversities stand in your way.This game required you to make drastic choices at a young age, and it pitted families and friends against each other.

Often times you would be cheering for the death of your friends, "Yes Kathy died, more food for the rest of us." The most common way of dying was definitely dysentery (I just looked up what dysentery was and it seems horrible, I don't suggest clicking on images though). If you were able to make it all the way you were instantly overcome with joy and felt like the luckiest person in the world.

5) The brownie in Kids Cuisine packages

Now I don't know if Kids Cuisine is even around anymore, but if they are they are not getting the publicity they deserve. The meal itself was pretty mediocre I only had it a few times. Besides the Penguin in the commercial the best part was the brownie. Only fools would eat the brownie first, those that were feeble minded would jump right in and leave themselves only some poor quality food for the end. Those who understand frozen dinner-ology would suffer through the overcooked fish sticks, cold mashed potatoes, and watery corn.

That's when the Kids Cuisine saved its reputation. The key to the whole experience was getting a new fork for the brownie, this would prevent it from being tarnished by all the sub-par food particles that were left on your fork. The top of the brownie would be crispy, but the inside would be gooey and melted. Kids Cuisine should have stopped with the whole frozen dinner industry and went straight to brownies because those can contend with any 5 star dessert in the business.

6) Kool Aid Burst/Hugs

Today the Kool Aid jammers are all the rage but before the Jammers were Kool Aid bursts. Tall wax bottles filled with sugary kool aid, I saw a few in a local Cumberland Farms a few years ago so naturally I had to get them. Problem was they were expired, so the sugar was stuck to the bottom of the bottle and all in all it was a miserable experience. I was not a big HUGS kid, but lots of my friends were so I feel the need to put them on this list because they were the Kool Aid Bursts for kids with poor tastes. The problem with hugs were the opening was really big so if you tried to drink from them as a kid you ended up wearing half of it and were a sticky mess the rest of the day. Kool Aid Burst had a small opening so spillage was nearly impossible.

7) Getting a piece of cheese from the deli

Going to the store with my parents was never the high point of my day, but I was more than happy to help with the grocery shopping. Running aisle to aisle looking for items on the list picking out my favorite foods, and the pinnacle of grocery store shopping was the trip to the deli. When the worker would hand me a piece of cheese the trip was truly a success.

As a college student I tend to get a sandwich everyday for lunch and 9 out of 10 times it has cheese on it, and usually the cheese is all but disguised. If you ever ate a piece of cheese from the deli as a kid you understand how that cheese was the best cheese you have ever consumed. Whether you were like me and broke it piece by piece to enjoy it slowly, or if you were like a neanderthal and ate it all at once the taste rivals only the Kid Cuisine Brownie.

8) The dough from Bertuccis

Such a simple concept, "Hey we got a lot of dough, why don't we give it to the kids to play with?". I would stretch it out and pretend like I was tossing a pizza, my sister would rip hers into pieces and shape them to look like cookies, but no matter how it was used, playing with the dough never failed to pass the time between ordering and the delivery of the meal. If you showed me someone who as a teenager didn't ask for the dough I'd show you one of two things, a liar, or a communist.

Bertuccis shouldn't have paired crayons and dough together though because it tended to be a messy combination. One minute you are using the red crayon to color the dough to look like sauce, and the next you want to do the maze in the kids menu. Well the dough stuck to your crayons and it was ruined for the whole evening. However, the dough taught you to wash your hands after playing because if you tried to eat your pizza with raw dough on your hands it would be pretty unappetizing. So looking back I learned more life skills from Bertuccis than I did in Middle School.

9) Fixing Nintendo 64 Cartridges

Back in the day everyone knew how to play Nintendo 64, it just came naturally. You don't necessarily remember learning to play Super Smash Bros or Mario Party you just kinda came out of the womb with the ability to master the controls. Another thing that came naturally was blowing in the cartridges if the game wasn't working. Whose idea was that in the first place, like "darn the games not working, maybe if I blow in it it'll work."

Nintendo definitely knew the trick, but didn't expect anyone to do it so they made the lifespans of the games short and the game makers probably hold a grudge against the creator of this trick, because it cost them a whole lot of money. Why it worked I'm not really sure but hey I'm not gonna complain.

10) Getting a Library Card

I may seem like a dork for saying this but I was so happy to get my library card. The first step to adulthood was showering/bathing on your own, but a close second was getting your library card. Now I probably used my library card about 4 times, but I got one to feel scholarly.

In hindsight I truly didn't need one because my mom went to the library once a week so she could have checked books out for me, but I wanted to feel cultured, and nothing builds character like signing out a book on your own. There was always talk about research projects and going to the library, but what elementary school didn't have its own library, so I feel bad for wasting the librarians time when she helped me get my own library card, but one day I'll have it framed next to my degree to show people I have finally made it to adulthood.