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The camera you bought at the drugstore, used up at the field trip or party, and handed back over the counter — whole. No focus, no zoom, just 24 or 27 chances to get a decent shot. You waited days to see if any of them came out — which was exactly the anxiety that made them so memorable.
Postage-stamp-sized strips that melted on your tongue in seconds and tasted like menthol fury in the best way. Launched in the US in 2001, they were an instant fad that made TIME's Best Inventions of 2002 list — in every drugstore and backpack until the craze cooled and left them oddly still around forever.
The sugarless gum that practically owned the drugstore checkout counter, and the slogan everyone can still recite: "Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum." Trident had been around since 1960, but its color-coded flavors — spearmint, cinnamon, bubble gum — were a '90s pocket-and-purse staple.