ALBUQUERQUE, NM—Can you imagine growing up in a world where
a gallon of gas costs just $1.11, a postage stamp sets you back a mere 29
cents, and a Super Bowl advertisement can be had for an infinitesimal $850,000?
How about a world where cellular telephones have external antennas and a bunch
of spunky Canadians are the World Champions of America's Pastime?
Sounds like some demented version of reality cultivated by a
hopelessly fevered mind, doesn't it?
But it isn't. It's 1993.
"Yeah, I was born in 1993," said Sydney Anderson,
19, as she breastfed her six-month-old son, Jared. "But I ain't even old. I'm
still just as hot as any 17-year-old bitch I see up in the club."
Ms. Anderson, who turns twenty just a few short minutes from
now, is old enough to remember such long-ago occurrences as the Lewinsky-Clinton
affair and the tragedy of September 11, 2001.
"I remember the president nutted on some chick's
dress," Ms. Anderson recalled. "It was on the news like every [expletive]
night. Then with that 9/11 thing, some Arabs blew up some buildings in L.A. or something. Our
teacher was all crying about it and stuff."
As the timer ticked down on the twilight of her teens, Ms.
Anderson yelled at her three-year-old daughter, Pink, to put down her iPad and
join her at the dining room table.
"Grandma's gonna give me stuff now!" Ms. Anderson
explained at approximately 150 decibels. "So sit down and shut up. And
here. Hold your brother. Mama needs a beer."
While Ms. Anderson scrounged in the deepest recesses of her
refrigerator for another can of Natural Light, the clock struck 2:14am, the precise
moment her mother brought her into this world twenty years ago.
"Damn it, Mama!" Sydney Anderson said. "I
told you all I wanted for my birthday was a case of damn beer! Can't you do
nothin' right?"
