We’re going to pretend that today’s Flashback Friday is about Shrinky Dinks, those magical sheets of plastic that you colored, cut out, and then stuck in the oven to shrink them down into brittle, scalding “fun” sizes. But, seriously, this photo just looks like it fell out of the 1980s, doesn’t it?

That was my little 13-inch television on which I played Hunt the Wumpus and all my other awesome generic ripoffs of cool Atari games that came with my TI-99/4A computer. Sadly, if I tried to play a video game on a television this small now, I’d probably have to tape magnifying lenses overtop my glasses. Old age: Run away!

This is also the television that I discovered Sisters on…but this Betamax VCR was not exclusively mine; this was the family VCR for years. We watched all kinds of Disney cartoons and live-action movies and whatever else the local mom-and-pop store offered on Beta tape. I remember a lot of things like K9 (we never could get Turner and Hooch, so we had to settle for James Belushi and a German shepherd…had a happier ending from what I remember) and Savannah Smiles, which I know we must have rented at least once a month, but I couldn’t tell you what it was about if my life depended on it. I also used to tape all kinds of movies from my childhood on this little machine…horribly cheesy films like Troop Beverly Hills and the remake of The Blob that always made my dad shake his head when he would pass by and see me designing special labels for these movies with my packet of Crayola markers.

So, sure, we can pretend that this entry is all about Shrinky Dinks…but what could I possibly say about Shrinky Dinks that I didn’t say in the very first sentence? These are Smurfs. I also did Shrinky Dinks for He-Man and Battle Cat, but I couldn’t find those on the day that I was taking these photos. I used to color my Smurf Shrinky Dinks while listening to my Smurfs All Star Show album. Dude, I was totally meta, even as a little Loba.