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19 Things We Did In 1997 That Feel Weirdly Outdated Today

* mail orders from the Delia's catalog and prays the item will be in stock *

1. Getting up early to look at the paper to find out what the weather was going to be like...

2. ...or turning on The Weather Channel and hoping the local forecast was on.

3. Mail ordering things from catalogs and waiting weeks for them to come in the mail.

Or worse yet, getting a letter back saying your item was on backorder or out of stock.

4. Watching an entire TV show of just movie trailers.

5. Having to watch E!'s The Gossip Show or read a weekly tabloid in order to be up to date on Hollywood gossip.

Yup, you basically had to seek it out!

6. Calling the video store to make sure the copy of the movie you wanted to see was in stock.

7. Ordering CDs from commercials by phone.

8. Watching the TV Guide Channel just to see what was on — which meant if something caught your eye you also had to remember the channel number it was on.

9. Answering the phone and literally having NO idea who was calling...

10. ...or "screening your phone calls" by waiting to see who was leaving a message on the answering machine and then deciding whether to answer or not.

11. Sneaking a message in (instead of saying your name) when calling collect.

12. Having to look up movie times in the newspaper.

Or calling the theatre. Which, TBH, was kind of pain since you had to wait till the automated answering machine gave out the listing for the movie you wanted to see.

13. Calling an airline to actually book your flight.

14. Photocopying sections of magazines or books for resource purposes.

A Nintendo magazine (you borrowed from your friends for the cheat codes) or an encyclopedia book you couldn't checkout from the library were always worth the 10 cent copies.

15. Having to look up phone numbers in the yellow pages.

16. Physically buying your tickets for concerts at a Ticketmaster located inside a music store.

17. Having to buy and carry around maps whenever you went on road trips.

You usually had to pre-plan your route (highlighting the roads/highways you wanted to take) just so you didn't get lost.

18. Going to internet cafes.

19. Having to carry around cash to pay for EVERYTHING since, basically, debit cards were for just pulling cash out of the ATM.