my friends and I used to call up a local radio live talk show hosted by a douche and try to get on the air through subterfuge (fake name, interest in current topic) to say preplanned phrases.

when I was maybe 10-ish, I used to buy shitloads of Bazooka gum at the convenience store and read the enclosed the Bazooka Joke comics. in the 90s, they were 5¢ and that only amounted to a 1¢ sales tax if you tried to buy more than 3 in a single transaction. I would cram so much of that stale gum in my mouth I could barely even chew it. I remember when my friend and I discovered we could ride our bikes to a 7-11 by taking a dangerous shortcut and make the trip there in like 10 mins easy instead of 35 minutes of hills. prior to that, our ability to spend our bullshit little savings was controlled by trips to the store with parents who would veto candy.

I remember blowing like $5 on a ton of shit. like a giant slurpee, a huge pouch of purple "big league chew", and 6 feet of hubba bubba bubble tape, a video game magazine. I remember riding back with a bag of complete garbage and thinking I had conquered the world. I think we sort of got in trouble once they realized our shortcut involved this sketchy as fuck section along a 2 lane highway with a 50 mph limit with no sidewalk or shoulder. real "why don't kids play outside - this is the outside they built for us" times.

I used to also read the daily comics section of the local newspaper every day before school, even though it was mostly "Family Circus" type of unfunny garbage. like I would go out to the street in the early dawn and bring in the paper so I could read those shitty comics.