You Know You're a Child of the Eighties If...

1. you remember "Friday Night Videos" before the days of MTV
2. a predominant color in your childhood photos is "plaid"
3. you see teenagers today wearing clothes that show up in those childhood photos, and they still look bad
4. while in high school, you and all your friends discussed elaborate plans to get together again at the end of the century and play "1999" by Prince over and over again
5. you, yes you, sat down and memorized the entire lyric sheet to "It's the end of the world as we know it"
6. you took family trips BEFORE the invention of the mini-van. You rode in the back of the station wagon and you faced the cars behind you.
7. you've recently horrified yourself by using any one of the following phases:
"When I was younger"
"When I was your age"
"You know, back when..."
"Because I SAID so, that's why"
"Just can't (fill in the blank) like I used to"
8. you can't remember a time when "going out for coffee" DIDN'T involve 49,000 selections to choose from
9. Schoolhouse Rock played a HUGE part in how you actually learned the English language
10. Kids that work in restaurants and supermarkets are starting to piss you off by calling you "sir" or "ma'am"
11. you're starting to view getting carded to buy alcohol as a GOOD thing, and you're ready to marry the next person who cards you when you want to buy cigarettes.
12. flashback: it was your first chance to vote in a presidential election, and you were SO disappointed because, just for laughs, you really wanted to vote for Gary Hart
13. you ever dressed to emulate a person you saw in either a Duran Duran, Madonna, or Cyndi Lauper video
14. at one point during your teenage years, you walked with a noticeable tilt to one side due to the number of plastic rings on that arm
15. "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang was one of the hot new songs when you first heard it at a school dance
16. the first time you ever kissed someone at a dance fell during "Crazy for You" by Madonna
17. there were at least three people in your school that voluntarily went by the names of "Skip" "Buffy" "Muffy" or "Dexter"
18. you ever owned one of those embarrassing crimping irons
19. you used to hold in your head the thought that all those gold chains on Mr. T actually looked kinda cool and the thought that Mr. T made millions seemed rational to you at the time
20. you remember with pain the sad day when the Green Machine hit the streets and made your old big wheel quite obsolete
21. the phrase "Where's the beef?" still doubles you over with laughter
22. you were convinced for years that Batman was a mildly overweight man with a moderate beer belly who wore his underwear outside of his clothes and talked strangely
23. you thought Sean Cassidy was "dreamy", and lusted after "Ted, your ship's photographer" on the Love Boat, and Ponch and John from CHiPs
24. you're still occasionally suffering flashbacks from your 21st birthday party
25. you're starting to dread your 40th birthday, and have even begun going into denial about it's possibility
26. you're starting to believe that maybe 40 isn't so old after all, and it's those people over 60 you have to look out for
27. you freaked out when you found that you now fall into the "35 - 50" age category on most questionnaires
28. you have begun to lust after men that it would be socially inappropriate for you to date due to their age
29. your hair, at some point in time in the 80's, became something which can only be described by the phrase "I was experimenting"
30. you've ever shopped at a Benetton, but not in the last five years, okay?
31. you're starting to believe that maybe having the kids go to school year-round wouldn't be such a bad idea after all
32. you're doing absolutely nothing with anything pertaining to your major degree
33. you won't walk into the place where you once knew every bartender on a first name basis because "there are too many kids there"
34. going to keg parties no longer involves hiding out in the woods when the cops show up
35. you want to go out dancing, you really, REALLY do, but your back hurts, sorry
36. you've recently horrified yourself by groaning as you get out of bed, not because of a hangover, but because it genuinely just hurt to do so
37. you're finding that you just don't understand more than half the lingo used on MTV any more
38. you ever wanted to be gagged with a spoon
39. U2 is too "popular" and "mainstream" for you now
40. you ever used the phrase "kiss mah grits" in conversation
41. When someone mentions two consecutive days of the week, the Happy Days theme is stuck in your head for hours on end
42. you remember trying to guess the episode of the Brady Bunch from the first scene.
43. you spent endless nights dreaming about being the Bionic Woman or Wonder Woman or the Six Million Dollar Man
44. you had ringside seats for Luke and Laura's wedding (on General Hospital)
45. you remember "Hey, let's be careful out there"
46. you know who shot J.R.
47. this rings a bell: "and my name, is Charlie. They work for me."