Big thing of blueberries. I went out and picked blueberries until the container was full. Then I paid for those blueberries. Now I can eat those blueberries and I do not have to share them with anyone. Unimaginable.
Also estrogen (shouldn’t have to be purchased though (we live in a commodification hellworld (I will cope by eating blueberries)))
I bought a little computer that fits in my pocket, and allows access to almost all the information in the world.
And yet I use mine to look at memes…
An e-reader! For a long time I was one of those people who insisted they would never substitute physical books for electronic ones, but I came to realize how convenient they are. I can have thousands of books saved in one place, highlight words I don’t understand without defacing the book, and the screen is much easier on my eyes than other mobile devices. I’ve been reading a lot more as an adult since I bought my e-reader :)
I’m a recent convert too! Never thought I would
My sick gaming rig. tower is red and black and has a mean look. when I was younger me having a GTX 570 was proper boast worthy back then. Younger me would be losing her shit over being able to play games at 60+ fps in 4K on a 2K QHD monitor
Mirroring @[email protected], anything I have that has computers in it. I have a USB charger (charger!) that’s more powerful than the computers that guided the Apollo missions in flight. I have some earphones that could take on the computing work of a dozen Voyagers. And in my pocket I have a computer that has more computational horsepower than all the computers on earth back when I was 16. AND it’s connected to literally millions other such computers, many of which are far more powerful than mine.
Going away from tech, however, I have a personal library filled to the brim with ancient works of philosophy, politics, artisanship, and even tea that I could only dream of actually owning when I was 16. I have a personal collection of musical instruments (mostly woodwinds and adjacent, with an intrusive lump of kalimbas as well) that would have probably made me rethink the career path I selected back then. I have silks. Oh so many silks! All because silk is cheap like borscht here, and because world trade, until recently, had been so open that even people half a world away can reasonably afford genuine silks, albeit perhaps not quite as many as I can here.
Oh, and I have a husband-like creature I fondly refer to as SO. At 16 I’d have freaked out hearing that since I swore then I would never marry. (And I haven’t, to be fair, at least in the legal sense.)
Guns.
My Mum was suuuper anti-gun when I was little, to the point where I wasn’t allowed toy guns of any sort, because she rememberers WW2; seeing injured soldiers returning home and the aftermath of the blitz … and when I was younger I faithfully parroted what she said.
However, the ability to defend oneself in an emergency, and have mastery over the operation of a gun is something I enjoy. I love target shooting.
I went shooting in America a few years ago and LOVED it. If I lived there and could learn to shoot properly I’d get one
Yeah, I’m in Spain and when I went on my license course most of the people taking it were women … my other half also loves shooting but doesn’t want the hassle of taking the course.
She said if we lived in the US we’d own all the toys, but then if we lived there we’d want to leave, lol
Hear you there!
an encyclopedia set
A patreon subscription to a Star Trek podcast. I’ve always been a huge Trekkie and podcasts didn’t exist when I was a kid. I love getting to hear all the behind-the-scenes info - young me would’ve gone nuts for it!
I would have loved that as a teenager
A reasonably nice boat.
An email address.
It turns out “free” services are very expensive.