expiredmilkn lies blogs

Growing up in the 80s and 90s hit different. At eight years old, we weren’t just kids—we were part-time street rats with a curfew tied to the sun. No chaperones, no cell phones, no helicopter parents circling above us like drones. Just a pack of half-baked ideas, a couple of bikes, and the iron rule: be back before the streetlights flicker on.

That was the deal. Stay out too long and mom would unleash a 30-minute rant that felt like a TED Talk on disappointment, then ground you for a week. Which, let’s be honest, usually lasted about 24 hours—because by day two you’d be driving her nuts on purpose until she set you free again. It was a game. A dangerous one, sure, but way more fun than Farmville.

We didn’t have smartphones. Our “find my friends” app was yelling down the block to see if Timmy’s bike was in the yard. Entertainment meant climbing on things we probably shouldn’t, inventing games with rules we’d forget halfway through, or daring each other into questionable stunts that somehow never made the news.

Now? Kids are glued to screens, gaming headsets clamped on like cybernetic implants. Parents panic at the thought of their kid walking to the store alone, not because of actual danger, but because 24-hour news made the whole world feel like a tabloid horror show. Is the fear real, or is it manufactured? Probably a mix of both—but either way, childhood traded in scraped knees and streetlight curfews for push notifications and parental tracking apps.

We thought we were free, and maybe we were. Or maybe we were just lucky. Either way, those summer nights belonged to us, and no Wi-Fi password could unlock that kind of chaos.

Expired Milk ’n Lies: nostalgia’s the only thing they can’t counterfeit.