I just downloaded icq, several years after everyone else got bored with it. When I was a kid, we got HBO, a VCR, a second car, and a second TV a decade after everyone else did. What were you the last person to get!

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), August 03, 2000

Answers

well i still don't even own my own computer. i only have access from work. also don't have a microwave. or a cell phone. nor, come to think of it, at 38, do i have a drivers lisence.

on the other hand, i'm the first person to answer this question! ;-)

-- nicole (nicolemrw@go.com), August 03, 2000.

When I was a child, my parents were too cruel to shell out money for a Nintendo; to this day, I'm not quite sure what they look like.

-- Mara Jo Finn (hexvision@england.com), August 03, 2000.

We didn't have a TV until I was about thirteen, and then only at my mom's house, not my dad's, and it was a tiny b&w thing and we watched movies on it. Here is what else I watched: Wild World of Animals; Nelson Mandela's release from prison; and, briefly, the old Star Trek.

Now we have a huge TV from the 70s and it cost $20 and you can't actually get TV channels on it, and we're not taking it with us to Boston. Oh, but we did watch the last fifteen minutes of the women's world cup this year.

Usually I say I don't have a TV, because to watch anything you have to get the antenna from out of the closet and plug it in and crawl around behind the stereo, so I never do it.

I still don't have a cell phone. I have never bought a computer.

-- Jessie (sorokin@alum.mit.edu), August 03, 2000.

Well, at age 45 I just bought my very first copy of TSR's "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook" in preparation for my very first AD&D game, so I'm probably the last and only Baby Boomer who has NOT had the D&D experience!

-- Lee Snavely (leesnavely@cs.com), August 03, 2000.

I didn't get a pair of Doc Martens until 1994, by which time everyone in Seattle had been leaving waffle-print tracks in the dirt for several years. I was amazed: I could walk all day! I could wear them into the mosh pit* and not get my toes crushed like champagne grapes! I could go out in rain, snow, sleet...

(* Nor did I own a Nirvana album until after Kurt Cobain was already dead.)

The legacy of owning a pair of Docs is that I am doomed to ruin every other pair of boots I have, since those who wear indestructible weatherproof shoes get out of the habit of avoiding pools of water and mud.

I don't have a microwave oven, nor cable TV. I will eventually get the former, when I have a little money, but not the latter. I had a friend once ask me quite seriously how I could possibly cook without a microwave, and another friend who keeps either forgetting or refusing to believe that I don't have cable, frequently asking me "Did you see...?" or "Are you watching...?" and reacting every time with fresh shock and pity when I say that I *can't*.

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), August 03, 2000.

I don't have a microwave or cable either, but my parents do have the former, and did for years when I still lived with them. So I can assure you, Kim, that you're not missing much. There are only two things a microwave oven is good for: defrosting food, and making popcorn. You certainly don't want to use one to actually cook anything.

-- Shmuel (shmuel@nycmail.com), August 04, 2000.

Apparently, I'm the last one to get ICQ.
I was also the last one to buy the 'nicer' stretchy flare pants. Unfortunately for me, they just don't stretch far enough anymore...

-- Kelli Jelly Bean (jellybean@dsl.telocity.com), August 04, 2000.

Now that's not fair. A microwave is an excellent kitchen tool, just like a mixer or a blender. You can melt butter in it, "cook" canned or frozen vegetables (I know, but sometimes you gotta), heat up spaghetti sauce, and make a fine polenta. Also, when you have recipes that call for putting chocolate and butter in a double boiler and cooking until you're crazy bored, you can just stick 'em together in a big bowl, zap them until the butter is hot and the chocolate is half melted, stir them until everything melts evenly, and you're good to go. I've been told that they also are very good for mimicking steamed vegetables, but our microwave (from 1987, just like our car) is too small to fit two ears of corn.

The trouble comes when people try to use them to cook dishes or worse, whole meals. That's no good.

-- Jessie (sorokin@alum.mit.edu), August 04, 2000.

I was the *last* twentysomething woman on the PLANET to listen to Alanis Morissette's _Jagged Little Pill_. Now I'm all "she's speaking to my SOUL!" and everyone else is like, "um, yeah, mine too, FOUR YEARS AGO."

Also, leggings. I inherited two pairs over the years, but never actually bought a pair, and never really made them part of my wardrobe. (For me, they are to be worn under ripped jeans. How can you wear them by themselves??? You have no pockets! Must have pockets.)

Okay, obviously homemade cheese fries is NOT a substitute for a nutritionally balanced meal.

-- Dorothy Rothschild (dorothyr@spies.com), August 04, 2000.

oh yeah, thats what i forgot to mention. also don't have cable. actually, i haven't watched any tv in so long i've forgotten when it was when i did. couple of months probably. and i never watched so much as a single episode of seinfeld.

-- nicole (nicolemrw@go.com), August 05, 2000.