90s

You remember the fat glass monitor that hummed, glowed, and bit your knuckle with a tiny lightning bolt.

It was a chunky little square of plastic that decided whether the computer would even wake up that day.

You walked away from the computer for ten minutes and came back to find it had grown wings.

You remember the long beige bar on the floor with the little glowing button, the one that ran the entire family universe.

You remember the little black box on your dad’s belt that buzzed once and changed his whole face.

You remember when all the knowledge in the world fit on one shiny disc, and the loading screen had its own theme music.

You remember the little sticker that begged you to spin the tape backward before you brought it home.

You remember the sacred panic of a tape unspooling, and the pencil that always knew what to do.

You remember the glowing green 12:00 that nobody in the house ever fixed.

You remember the little blinking box that held strangers’ voices hostage on a cassette the size of a postage stamp.