"You know were part of the eighties when you have to make a conscious choice not to say 'gag me with a spoon'," I laughed as a friend and I compared our teenage experiences in the 1980s. "I have to be careful because my daughter repeats everything I say."

"At least you won't be buying jellies," my friend replied.

I remember wearing jellies, those plastic shoes every girl had to have if she was a part of the in-crowd. I hated those shoes and I still do. They were ugly and uncomfortable. How I ever convinced myself to wear them baffles me. Oh, the power of peer pressure!

Twister beads was something else that reminds me of the eighties. I loved those. I would still wear them, if I could find them somewhere. I remember mixing, matching and twisting these must-have accessories and wearing them day after day. I had a special necklace rack that I used to store nothing else but my twister beads. Maybe they are still packed away, with my cheerleading uniform and my Madonna tapes.

Yes, there was Madonna. She wasn't my artist of the decade. I much preferred Sheena Easton over the Material Girl. I still love her music, but for more mature reasons. Her voice is pure and her range is magnificent. I remember when her single "Sugar Walls" was put on Tipper Gore's "filthy fifteen list." I wonder what the former second lady thinks of today's music. Her list would now be called the "filthy fifteen thousand list." You definitely know you were a part of the eighties when you still consider Sheena Easton to be one of the greatest voices of all time.

"He looks like someone who would tamper with children," my grandmother told me when she saw a picture of Michael Jackson in one of my many teen magazines. I had no idea what she meant by "tamper with," but many years later I realized exactly what she meant. My grandmother always had a gift for knowing things long before anyone else did.

"Do you remember Luke and Laura?" my friend asked me as our conversation continued.

Yes, I remember them. I wasn't really into that couple. He was, after all, a rapist. I preferred Robert and Holly, who came on the Port Charles scene a few years later. There was also Steve (Patch) and Kayla from "Days of Our Lives." I had no idea that their popularity would cause the mass numbers of Kaylas to be applying for college in the past few years. I never considered naming my child after a soap opera character, though many not only considered it, but went ahead and

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