Modern device your parents had that you don’t have now

Child of the 70’s so we had an electric ice crusher. One that broke ice into little pieces, not an ice shaver.
Here is a manual one.
Electric one but is it worth $130?

Hair dryer.

No, not a hand-held blow dryer. I mean the big clunky box with a hose coming out that attached to a plastic elasticized bonnet you put on your head. There was also a groove along the bottom where hot air came out for drying your nails. It must have broken some time in the 90s. I don’t remember seeing it when I would visit after then.

I have a hand-held, but rarely use it. Everyone in the family just air dries.

We had one that had a big plastic arm and hard shell bonnet you placed over your head.

Fun times sitting under that thing reading a book.

The ice dispenser in the door of most modern fridge/freezer units has that built in. So many/most of us still have the same capability, just not the separate device.

I believe that a car phone is a cell phone. It’s just one that you leave in the car.

My grandparents had an electric “bellows”, basically a free standing fan that looked a little like a leaf blower on a tripod. It was super effective at getting the wood fire in the fireplace going.

I’ve tried to find one for our fireplace and totally failed, the nearest thing is a flimsy little plastic battery powered thing (that is meant for camp fires), which does work OK, but nothing like as well as theirs did.

Does a Fondue Pot count as a device? We would have fondue night for dinner a couple of times a month when I was a kid.

Do people still fondue?

Yes, we do. Though a lot less often than we use to.

Probably down to twice a year.

We have a fondue pot (I think it was a wedding present); we probably are in the once-or-twice-a-year camp with it, too.

Oh yeah, another vote for “I forgot that one.”

While I don’t need one at this stage of my life, I do see its value. The one my parents had had a larger cooking area than even a large skillet for the stovetop. My mom used to use hers all the time to pan-fry thin slices of squash dipped in flour, salt and pepper - with the big square electric skillet she could cook it all in 1-2 batches.

Prior to the advent of cellular phone technology, there were car phones, which were not cellular phones, as far back as the 1940s and 1950s. They used a different sort of radio frequency and system than was later developed for cellular phones, and once cell phones started becoming widely available, by the end of the 1980s, a “car phone” was likely a cell phone.

We go to The Melting Pot, get several different styles of fondue plus enjoy their extensive wine list. They do the cleanup as well.

Fondue is fun, but the prep and cleanup is a lot.

True enough, and it reminds me a lot of the 1970s for some reason.

Most cans these days have pull tabs anyway.

Darn it. Now I want fondue. We used to have a pot. I’m sure I can wing it.

Also have a bread maker that I use about every other month. That sounds like a real good pairing.

Winter is around the corner. I will surprise my wife.

It is a good pairing. A fresh loaf of bread is very good with fondue.

Oh, I forgot that one, too. By which I mean I don’t have a hand held hair dryer. I just air dry. Going for a drive in my convertible after a shower helps it dry faster, too. :slight_smile:

And thinking of bathroom items reminded me, I don’t have a bathroom scale, either. If I want to know how much I weigh, I have to go to the doctor. Or gym, I suppose. But really, I’ve never really needed to know exactly how much I weigh outside of doctor visits.

Decent potted history of the pre-cellular mobile phones in cars & other moving vehicles:

Until we moved to this house, that was our situation - very few newer houses are built with double wall ovens, and/or separate cooktops.

I will admit, I use that second oven about 3 times a year, but when I need it, it’s grand.

Mom’s kitchen also had a much wider-than-usual cooktop (36 inches versus 30, or something) and in the back / middle, there was a large griddle area, useful for pancakes etc. and covered with a stainless steel cover the rest of the time. I’ve never felt the need for one of those.

A slit in the back of the medicine cabinet.

It’s hard to imagine ANYONE ever thinking that was a good idea. But the one in our bathroom (the one we kids used) had such a slot, though none of us knew what it was at the time. I have no clue whether there was such a slot in the cabinet in my parents’ bathroom.