Wendy’s changed the spicy chicken sandwich. The new one isn’t bad, but the old one occupied a very specific spot in my memory that will be missed.
I miss places that weren’t overrun with traffic.
I lived in LA right at the end of “it’s LA. Everything is 20 minutes from everything else.” Which was mostly true other than a rush hour that politely lasted from 3:30 to 6:00pm. Only places like The Valley or Long Beach or Montebello/West Covina took 30+ minutes.
Every time I visit now, everything is stop and go traffic. Not just there, every major city. Road infrastructure hasn’t, and can’t realistically, keep up with basic population growth. Sprawl is a disease. It’s urban planning cancer.
That sounds pretty cool tbh, sometimes I’m still a little bummed that the American Dream™ can’t be a sustainable thing for everyone…
Yeah, it was awesome. Beach? 20 minutes. Work? 20 minutes. Every friend? 20 minutes.
It really is something special to live in a time and place when infrastructure matches demand. Life becomes about living, not about the logistics of daily life as a struggle.
I think you missed the “ultimately inconsequential” part of the prompt…
The scent of my grandparents’ house.
It had a very distinctive sweet aroma. I was never sure what is was, and I never asked. The scent followed them when they moved into a condo in a retirement facility. The last time I visited them in their condo was 2019, and they’ve both since passed away.
They gave me a book many years ago, the pages of which used to smell like their house. I know if I dig that book out of storage, it might still have a trace scent in it. But otherwise, it is now just a memory.
My grandparents had one of those ottomans that you could open up and put things in. I grabbed it after my grandpa died and will occasionally open it and take a big whiff of that granparents’ house smell.
Seasons 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6 of Firefly.
I also miss Sobeys (Canadian grocery chain) Take n Bake pizza. They changed to a new recipe many years ago. I bought one of their new pizzas, it was very disappointing.
Mentioning Sobeys reminded me of Sobe drinks. Those were good…
Taco Bell and the Quesarito.
Fuuuck, why did they remove it? It was the whole reason to go to Taco Bell!
What I miss can never happen again. There was some mystery of the world lost with the internet. I miss opening a pack of magic cards and that was what you got, no hand picking the best build online. I miss hearing my friend say some bullshit in a game, and the only way to discover the truth was to try it. I am thankful for the speed of information nowadays and how much more accessible the world is. But sometimes I’d like to recapture that magic of the unknown, the closeness of having to converse with others to even guess at the depth of your hobby.
There was an helado shop very near where I live now, just a wonderland of flavors, nice lady with a hundred tubs of different interesting mostly fruit flavored ice creams. Not expensive. It’s been gone for years and I still miss it.
Also there was this house I used to pass on my way home that had a crazy paint job, I think it had been orange and someone tried to cover that with green - the result was a house that looked like it was ripening and I just loved to see it. Eventually someone “fixed” it by making it gray, I miss it.
Being able to eat peanuts. Developed an allergy 4 years ago.
The park in Oregon where I used to walk every day and see the most amazing water birds.
Prank phone calls. Its still possible with enough dedication and effort, but between smart call ID, the phone boxes disappearing and 99.99% of incoming calls being scams its just not worth the effort.
Time was if you knew a phone number and 30p in your pocket you could pop into a phone box and get an expensive laugh.
I also kinda miss how they smell. It was awful mix of piss, cigarettes and burnt plastic, but it was a pretty unique sensation.
I know it’s still around, but the og pita pit. Back in highschool they were the spots to hang. Late night always had the weirder people working (as my friends and I were also weird), and it was great.
We’d go there, they’d be blasting whatever music they wanted (often hardcore punk or metal) and we’d all just chill with the employees. Sometimes get some free pitas, maybe go out back and smoke a joint. I’ll miss that og falafel pita…
It felt like the oki-dog of the town I was in.
Here’s a couple:
Reebok DMX shoes. Most comfortable shows I ever owned.
Interior decor of Taco Bell and other fast food places in the mid 90s. It looked like a fun place. Now it just reminds me of a POW camp on Guadalcanal.
Watching Star Trek with my grandma at five o’clock on our local TV station. I’d always say that one day I’d be on the Enterprise and she’d look up from her knitting and smile gently.
Interior decor of Taco Bell and other fast food places in the mid 90s. It looked like a fun place. Now it just reminds me of a POW camp on Guadalcanal.
I was just talking about this with some family members. Wendy’s, McD’s, and Pizza Hut all had very distinct exteriors (and often interiors). You could readily identify them driving down the highway just by the building’s silhouette. If you somehow woke up from a coma inside a Pizza Hut you could instantly know where you were just by the decor.
I’m sure there are a lot of factors that contribute to this but I think it boils down to real estate prices. It’s easier to resell a generic box than an obvious Pizza Hut.
The Cheesy Gordita Crunch used to be $0.89. Not 99, EIGHTY-NINE cents. Now it’s like $3.79. Used to be my favorite thing on the menu, but there’s no way I’m paying that much for it now. I tolerated $0.99, $1.09, even $1.19 but $1.29 is where I said “no”. Haven’t had one since.
Seafood Sub from Subway. It was my childhood. WhichWich comes close but it’s not the same.
Freaking out my friends BBS modems by calling it and whistling into the phone.
McChickens and McDoubles burgers both being on the dollar menu. It wasn’t that it was even good, but it was something my brother and I bonded over snacking on after midnight for years when we lived at home still.
I know both exist still, but it’s not the same. The value is just gone and so went our little cheap late-night snack ritual.
The McDouble was only created because the double cheeseburger used to be $0.99 and they decided that was too cheap. The McDouble is just a double cheeseburger with one slice of cheese instead of two.
Did you ever put the McChicken between the two patties of the McDouble to create a McGangbang? I miss that $2 monstrosity.
That’s the only way to eat it as far as I know lol, seriously though getting full on them for $2 was the dream
Sex. Minus the “deeply personal.” Well, minus the “deeply.” I always make it personal.
