Life
12 Things Every True '90s Neat Freak Had To Have
Neat freakery is a gift, and if you were a neat freak in the '90s, you will remember a thing or two about the kinds of things you absolutely had to have. With Friends ' Monica Geller as your muse, you were a cleaning powerhouse. Always the most organized of your social circles, all your belongings were neat and ordered, and you never lost a single thing. Sure you had some anxiety about other people touching your stuff (destructive oil on their finger tips! Clumsiness! Everyone is mad except for you!), but if you didn't, you wouldn't be the have-it-all, wonder person that you are, now, would you?
Every generation brings gems for its neat freaks. These days we have app upon app that helps you keep your life ordered, and wonderful places like Muji and the Container Store so you can feel like you died and went to heaven. We had unique stuff in the '90s too, like storage options for all our floppy disks and CDs. We had gel pens and places to put them. We had wonderful places to store our makeup and accessories, so tacky yet earnest only the '90s could have produced them. And as always, we turned our noses up at chaos. Here are 11 things every true '90s neat freak had to have.
1. An Encyclopedic Knowledge of Monica Geller Quotes
If you were a neat freak in the '90s you knew that Monica had 11 categories for her towels. You also know exactly what "Monica clean" means, and to be honest, your friends probably say the same about your cleaning style.
2. Gel Pens, Perfectly Ordered From Light To Dark, Always In The Original, Pristine Packaging
For some reason the neatest '90s person was always the Queen or King of the gel pen. And you kept your gel pens (probably pastel colors) in the original packaging because WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER PUT THEM IN A PENCIL CASE TO GET ALL MUDDLED? The inhumanity!
3. An Aversion To Nickelodeon's Disgusting Penchant For "Sliming"
It was a barbaric practice you could never truly get behind.
4. A Meticulously Organized Spacemaker Pencil Case
Your Spacemaker was your pride and joy. You'd routinely empty it and wash it inside, and then refill it in a very specific way, and when you put it in your bag, it would be placed flat and facing upwards to maintain inner equilibrium.
5. A Special Folder For POGs, With Custom Plastic Sheets Inside That Had POG Sized Pockets
The thing you hated most in the '90s was playing POGs with your primitive friends who just kept them in a pile in a box, bag, or worse, just on a shelf. No, no. You were better than that.
6. An Ordered Sticker Book To Keep Stickers In
There was a page dedicated to oilies, one for smellies, on for furries, etc. Stickers, to you in the '90s, weren't for sticking on your stuff. They were for perfectly organizing in a dedicated sticker book.
7. An Alphabetized Case For Floppy Disks
Like everything you owned in the '90s, your floppy disks had a special case to live in. And they didn't live in it willy-nilly. There was order in that case.
8. Several CD Shelves, Potentially Swirly Ones
Probably also alphabetized, your CDs were always in the right cases, and kept ordered in a very '90s style array of CD shelves.
9. Caboodles
The ultimate makeup and accessories case of the '90s, you had oodles of Caboodles. One for lotions and creams, one for your makeup, one for your hair accessories (got to keep those scrunchies and that Topsy Tail some place!), one for nail polish — and your beauty items never went astray!
10. One Of Those Plastic Dusters That Created Static That Apparently Made Dust Stick To It Better
They felt horrendous to the touch and cleaning the dust out of them was difficult on account of all the static, but by God did they work.
11. A Miracle Mop
You can't call yourself a true neat freak of the '90s if you didn't have yourself a Miracle Mop. They were the weapon of choice for anyone had a floor and was looking to clean it.
12. A Label Maker
Just reading those words on the page should make your mouth water just a little bit. Good money says you still have yourself a cheeky little label maker now, don't you? There's nothing quite like the feeling of cleaning all your things, organizing things into boxes, AND THEN PUTTING LABELS ON THEM TO EASILY TELL WHERE THINGS ARE.
