As time passes, and with it, fashions come and go. Something you despised 20 years ago turns out to be worth hundreds of euros now and would automatically make you the most popular uncle or aunt wherever you are right now. How many of you have experienced these situations?
1990, Your father gives you âhisâ Vespa.
Being the good young man that you are, on your birthday, your father gives you the Vespa that you have been seeing collecting dust in the garage for as long as you can remember. It just needs a couple of engine fixes and an afternoon of thorough cleaning. But of course, itâs your fatherâs Vespa. Your colleagues go to school with their new Gileras, GasGas or Derbys and your father wants you to go with a motorcycle that your grandfather bought in â76 when your father returned from the military⊠there are even some that brake with a pedal! 
But of course, in 2005, retro fashion returns. The âpopâ thing is totally in fashion. And the Vespa is a pop icon. The Vespa that your father threw away because you didnât want it on your 16th birthday, which only needs a couple of engine repairs, would now be the center of attention. And you despised her because she had the brake on her foot, and because the postal workers delivered the mail with her.
1995, your cousin gets older and gives you his NES
Many times, there are things that make us hate our cousins. Like when they grow up and their clothes become our clothes, something very common if you grew up in the 90s. Something similar happened if we talked about toys. And the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) was a toy. Regardless of who it may be, in 95 an NES was something that a kid over 18 couldnât have. So your cousin wanted to give it to you⊠Gift? A console that didnât even have 3D? With beeping music? What can an NES give you that your new PlayStation doesnât? Come on cousin! What can âThe Kirbyâs Adventuresâ do against the first Tomb Raider? If you want to give me something, give me something good!
And of course, the NES wouldnât be here if fourteen years later a working NES, with its two controllers and a couple of games, wasnât a gem that could well be worth its weight in gold. You could plug the controls (even if they donât work) into a guy for âŹ10 on eBay. Because now they are cool, they are retro and many people also use them to make small mods and put mp3 inside the controller, or CD players and alarm clocks inside the NES.
1997, a friend shows you his Discman, and you with a WalkmanâŠ
The song âLa luna y el toroâ by Los Centellas plays throughout the summer. The Ibiza Mix or Max Mix style compilations take over prime time advertising, and they never forget to indicate that they are sold on Cassette and CD. And your colleague arrives, who has found his first job, and with his first salary he buys a Discman, a portable CD, nothing less! As you can hear, it works well! except when you move it it âjumpsâ. Your colleague is the milk, and you only have a Walkman, and when you listen to the Spice Girls and the battery starts to run out, they look like the devil coming out of your headphones.
What to do with your Walkman? Anything less than using it in front of your friend and all the âsummer friendsâ that appear everywhere in Gandia. You have to get the 60,000 pesetas that the damn discman costs and buy a better one. One that doesnât jump when you move it! Your Walkman is already a thing of the past, its tapes already show the passing of the years. Do you really remember where you left it?
2000, the Spectrum comes to light.
For these things, parents are usually to blame. Normally they are the ones who buy something that later becomes their childrenâs. Do you remember when your father told you that his Spectrum, with which he had taken his first steps in computing back in â85, was bothering him in the closet? He told you clearly that if you wanted it, he would give it to you, otherwise, throw it away. You had a face full of acne and Age of Empires 2 âThe Conquerorsâ had just been installed on your Pentium 3, which even had a recorder!
A pseudo-PC that only worked with tapes,⊠how many little stories your father must have told you about those tapes, that they were lent to friends, that they could be bought, copied and returned in less than two hours (yes, your father was also a pirate),⊠A rubber keyboard and the need to bother your mother in the middle of a soap opera to plug the Spectrum into the TV meant that you only used it once. Since you didnât know the commands, and the long waits while the programs loaded made you nervous, the Spectrum ended up in the trash. Now it is worth hundreds of euros on eBay (if it works) and it is a piece worth showing to your classmates at the Faculty of Computer Science, there are even a couple who, like good geeks, know how it works and used it for a while. But of course, Age of Empires II âThe Conquerorsâ was cooler.
2005, tidying up the room, you find your Telesketch
How long has it been since you tidied that drawer? At least since â88 you havenât opened it, everything full of junk and dust. And on a Sunday when it occurs to you to open it, you find the old Telesketch, the little machine that with only two little wheels and without the possibility of correcting anything, entertained you for hours. Whole afternoons trying to make the same drawing that was on TV and shaking it really hard every time you messed up. You, who are already an older guy, in 88 you were eleven years old, but opening that drawer at 28 years old and finding the telesketch is not the same. To the trash!
You threw it in the trash! Now you realize! After reading this post on Bocabit, you realize that a guy like me is capable of making you feel bad for having despised all the gadgets I have mentioned. Your telesketch no longer draws anything, and no one erases it anymore by shaking it like crazy. But what do you want to draw now, huh? Surely now you can make a GTA IV cover without errors in ten minutes. But your telesketche is no longer in the drawer.
Now you see a smart guy who actually put away his Vespa and you will hate him, you will hate the one who plays Mario Bros on the NES and the one who had the Discman that you never had, maybe you will even start looking for a Spectrum emulator. But thatâs life. Now, letâs hope that because of this post no one gets Diogenes Syndrome, and start saving everything you have at home. What you do have to keep are your memories, thatâs what they are for.
And now, after reading this post, what gadgets are you starting to miss?