Monday, Annie Reneau is speaking fluent middle-aged luxury: sleep, sweatpants, and maybe a concert that ends before bedtime. From there, we meet two 11-year-olds who turned mowing lawns for free into something much bigger, the woman behind a forgotten gelatin empire, and a magazine return so late it makes every overdue notice you've ever ignored look adorable.
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Man nails the ‘absurd’ luxuries aging Gen Xers secretly want at this stage of life | ||
Luxury cars and VIP passes? Nope. Give us high-density mattresses and concerts that start at 4:00 p.m. | ||
By Annie Reneau | ||
One hallmark of Gen X is that we don’t take anything too seriously, including ourselves. Self-deprecating humor is kind of our jam, which is why a list of “absurd” and “embarrassing” luxuries Gen Xers secretly want as we [gulp] get older is hitting so hard. | ||
Daimon and Nan are 55+ Gen Xers with a YouTube Channel dedicated to helping Gen X “navigate the second half of life with honesty, humor, and zero BS — because we are living it too.” In two videos, they share how Gen X’s idea of luxury has changed, and, honestly, it’s spot on. | ||
“Do you remember back in your 20s when you thought luxury was a sports car, a two-story house with an intercom that nobody used, and a backstage pass to a concert or a club?” Daimon begins. “Now, my idea of luxury is coming home at 5:00 p.m., putting on sweatpants, turning my phone to do not disturb, and getting 7 hours sleep, uninterrupted, waking up with no soft tissue mystery injury.” | ||
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11-year-olds mowed 50 lawns for free, so the ‘Lawnmower Man’ donated gear to open a business | ||
“These are good, hard-working kids that deserve some gratitude.” | ||
By Tod Perry | ||
Rodney Smith Jr., of Huntsville, Alabama, was profiled by KMBC in 2023 for his generous donation to two 11-year-olds who completed his 50 Yard Challenge in Gadsden, Alabama. Ja’Torrian Taylor and Tevin Rice, founders of TJ & JT Mowing Service, completed Smith’s challenge to mow 50 yards for the elderly, veterans, and people unable to care for their lawns for free. | ||
“I’m heading down to Gadsden right now. These are good, hard-working kids that deserve some gratitude,” Smith, known as “The Lawnmower Man,” told KMBC. Smith had been told that Taylor and Rice were sharing an old lawnmower that a neighbor had donated to them. | ||
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This is actually such a great idea for making new friends.
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After her husband died, she secretly ran his struggling gelatin business. 6 years later, she was a household name. | ||
Her recipes helped spark the gelatin craze that swept through midcentury American kitchens. | ||
By Heather Wake | ||
Throughout the ‘50s, ’60s, and even ’70s, gelatin-based novelties were the wobbling crown jewel of at-home American cuisine. Whether a sweet and jiggly fruit salad or a savory, colorful, veggie-laden aspic, hardly any single food item feels as synonymous with this bygone era. Perhaps because, among the various and sometimes questionable ingredients trapped within its gooey walls, it holds our collective history of adapting to new economic realities, getting our first taste of an industrialized food system, and the revamped expectations placed on women to create harmony and whimsy in the home. | ||
Yet few know the woman who began this colossal culinary craze. A woman who made domesticity part of her personal brand long before the “trad wife” movement and who, until now, has largely been obscured from history. | ||
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An Upworthiest Quiz
What is that wonderful smell of freshly cut grass actually signaling?
Last Week's Results
In Friday's issue, we shared Tod Perry's look at why headphones make some Boomers so mad.
And we asked: When someone is wearing headphones in public, what does that signal to you? 36.4% of you said Nothing. They're just listening to something. So the room is leaning toward a simple rule: maybe don't read too much into the earbuds.
“Please don’t talk to me” (27.3%)
“Interrupt only if it’s important” (13.7%)
Nothing. They're just listening to something (36.4%)
Totally depends on where we are (22.6%)
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John Hanson is the poster child for "better late than never." | ||
Man returns 132-year-old magazine to library. Perfect timing helps him dodge a $12K late fee. | ||
“I said to myself: ‘Boy, this would be a good time to bring it back.'” | ||
By Heather Wake | ||
Had the Concord Public Library in New Hampshire never announced a fine freeze, an overdue magazine published in 1894 might never have found its way back there. | ||
Eighty-four-year-old John Hanson wasn’t exactly sure how a September 1894 issue of The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine fell into his hands. He knew that it mysteriously came into his possession during a move in the mid-’60s; it didn’t come from his parents (neither of whom had a library card), nor did it once belong to his late wife, who, though she was an avid reader with a library card, was a stickler for returning things on time. Even if she wasn’t, holding onto a library book for 130 years seemed…unlikely. | ||
Hanson also knew it was time to act, as the fine amnesty would save him about $12,055 in late fees on the 48,220-day loan. | ||
“Yeah, when I saw that, I said to myself: ‘Boy, this would be a good time to bring it back’,” he told NBC News. | ||
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