Nostalgia ‘99

The year is 1999. What are smart phones? A tablet? Wait, you’re telling me a tablet is a kind of computer? I don’t believe it! That’s the attitude the wifey and I are taking into our winter weekend getaway this January 2020. There’s talk of some coronavirus, but I’m sure it’ll be nothing.

Anyway, her name is Adriana — a sweet, fiery, blue eyed, raven haired, mixed skin beauty from Brazil. My name is Dylan — a born and bred Pennsylvanian with blonde hair, green eyes and an old school SoCal soul. We’re bringing flip phones with only calling and texting, a Nintendo 64, movies from 1999, attire from the 90’s and my black notebook with my stock picks. We’re going to party like it’s 1999, as the Prince song goes!

I just need to finish up my Friday afternoon at work. I’m employed at a startup investment firm inside a glass high-rise building overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica, CA. My job requires long hours of gambling on stocks using the money of wealthy people ready to cut your head off if you lose them even a penny, but isn’t everything in life a gamble? No risk, no reward.

Speaking of risks, just last last month the investment firm was hacked by unknown entities. All our investment tricks and secrets were publicized, and our clients lost large sums of money from our competitors. Thankfully, we were able to bounce back to nearly even in the past month for most of our clients, but not everyone was so fortunate. It’s a gut wrenching feeling to lose money for someone. Since then, the boss gave everyone a black leather bound notebook and told us to write our biggest secrets on the un-hackable technology of paper while IT installs so called “impenetrable” security measures. The notebook is what inspired my lady’s idea for us to take a weekend getaway with no constant cellphone notifications and a chance to get nostalgic about our simpler 90’s childhoods.

We finished packing up our “party like it’s 1999” paraphernalia into suitcases Friday night and would start our weekend trip early Saturday morning at the beach. The plan was to begin the morning surfing on some waves and finish the evening skiing down some slopes. It’s one of those things unique to Los Angeles that you can do when a warm winter weekend springs up. To be plain, we’re not very good at surfing, but what’s life if you’re too afraid to get better at things you’re not yet good at? After all, living life in fear is nothing but a horror film masquerading as a simple life.

The next morning, the surfing teacher helped us catch some waves better than we ever had before. Adriana wore a red Baywatch styled bathing suit; me, some plain red trunks. I’m pretty sure the teacher was hitting on my lady, but these days you need to have thick skin and lots of trust in your significant other or you’ll go mad. According to Adriana, he kept throwing her lots of glances and flirty comments when I wasn’t around. Her disinterest didn’t seem to bother him to take a hint; you know the type. We didn’t let it make our time surfing miserable, though.

After the enjoyable morning of getting better at surfing, Adriana put on a skirt; I put on a t-shirt; then we grabbed a nice lunch on the beach in Malibu — sushi, lobster, fruit, vegetables and iced tea. The waves were crashing in a hundred feet from our table.

Once we finished eating, we got in our rented ‘99 red Porsche and took a drive to the snow capped mountains and piles of snow outside the city. Upon completing a two hour drive of jamming out to 90’s songs, we reached the winter resort of stylish wooden buildings and ski lifts taking thrill seekers of snow from valleys to peaks to get thrilled all over again. The first thing I did once I got into the hotel was ask the concierge to look up the stock prices I had listed in my notebook.

“The first thing you do once we get here is look up stocks? Why am I not surprised?” Adriana asked me rhetorically.

“This trip isn’t free,” I answered back.

“Oh, don’t get all defensive. I’m only teasing you,” she said.

“I’m not defensive,” I responded defensively. “Okay. I just don’t want to get in trouble for breaking the fourth wall of our 1999 theme.”

“They had internet in 1999. If you would have brought a computer they used in 1999 I wouldn’t have minded,” she wisely explained to me a perspective I wish I’d considered earlier.

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” I asked with wishful desire of a moment long passed.

“You said you would have gotten too attached to checking your stocks every five minutes,” Adriana said like I should have remembered saying this before asking.

“Oh, yeah. Good point. I did say that, and I definitely would have done that. Smart guy,” I said. She laughed.

You see, the underground internet forums are ablaze about an investment to make against a stock that some of the real big investment players (my business rivals) are shorting. If all goes according to the wildest dreams of us forum posters, which never happens, I could get quite rich over this weekend. With a such moonshot chance of success, though, I guess I’ll be okay over the weekend without internet, and with my co-worker covering my business accounts, all will be good. That’s what I have to tell myself, anyway.

The concierge, a middle aged Hispanic man with short hair, a shaved face and nice suit, read me the prices of my personal stocks. None of them were making much movement, which is better than downward movement.

Speaking of downward movement, we put our bags in the room and hurried off to the ski slopes in our brightly colored 90’s winter attire. Adriana wore pink; I wore blue. It seemed fitting, since the 90s are full of cliché.

I’d only ever been skiing once before. Adriana had gone down the slopes a handful times and was much better than me. She wanted to be my trainer, and she did a good job. By the end of the night, I was able to successfully traverse down the slopes without falling!

“I’m a real boy now,” I jokingly said to Adriana after making it successfully down the slope three times in a row.

“No, I made you man,” she said with eyes of sacred love for only me.

“Well, well then,” I smartly replied with an eyebrow raise, smile and eyes locked with my love.

After hitting the slopes, we had a nice steak dinner with red wine at the resort. Then we brought a bottle of white wine and strawberry cheesecake slices back to the room. By this time, I had completely forgotten about checking my stocks because I was so excited to fire up the ancient piece of technology called a Nintendo 64 and play some old school video games. Good thing girls like playing video games in 2020; that’s a welcome break in the fourth wall of nostalgia ‘99. It was a perfect nostalgic end to a perfect nostalgic day.

We woke up the next morning and ordered breakfast in bed. The nice Indian lady who delivered the breakfast even brought up a newspaper with the current price of the stocks I was investing in. There’s still no movement on them. Very nice service from the hotel, though. I made sure the lady got a nice tip and that she gave some of it to the concierge for his due diligence with the newspaper.

This morning and afternoon we set out to be quite lazy as we we prepared for a music concert in the desert at Palm Springs that our friend was performing at. It’s not a big venue, more of an intimate setting. We wanted to be there to support him. His music style sort of fit the theme of our trip as well.

Throughout the morning and afternoon we binged our favorite movies from the year 1999. My movie was The Matrix; her’s was 10 Things I Hate About You; our mutual decision was Fight Club. We could have had so many more, since there were so many amazing movies released that year, but we had to leave by 5:30pm to reach the venue on time. We decided to wear boots, jeans and leather jackets for our 90’s attire tonight.

We made it just in time to say ‘hi’ to our friend. He and his band play rock music with the sound of the Red Hot Chili Papers, U2 and Rage Against The Machine combined, except they’re Asian. With the high praise description I just gave them you would think they’re on the way to becoming famous, but they’re still small time and looking for a big break — the typical talented artists you’ve never heard about. They’ll get there some day!

Well, that about completes our weekend trip. I take that back. That was supposed to be the end of our weekend trip.

After the concert, I walked up to Xin, our musician friend, and asked him, “Would you mind looking up some stocks for me on your phone?”

“Oh, yeah! You two did a, uh, what’d you say it was?” he fumbled in asking, probably still caught up in the excitement of his show.

“We did a 90’s themed trip — party like it’s 1999. It was a lot of fun. You should try it sometime. Anyway, I only have a dumb flip phone, and I’m watching my stocks so I don’t lose seven grand during this trip. Can you help me out, man?”

I told him my stocks, and he started listing their most updated price one by one — all four of them. I thought he had to make a mistake on the last one.

“Give me your phone!” I hurriedly shouted to him, so I could confirm it. He gave me his phone in a quick fright. “This is right. I can’t believe it. This is unbelievable! I’m rich!”

“What’s unbelievable? One of your stocks go up, baby?” Adriana asked.

“Yes! I might be able to help Xin book an arena for his next gig it’s that big!” I shouted to her as I lifted her up and hugged her.

“That’s what I’m talking about, brother!” Xin shouted back.

“For real?!” Adriana excitedly asked.

“For real, baby!” I exclaimed.

I looked back at the phone and noticed that the stock had been dropping steadily for the past hour — down 102% — but it’s still up 1,214% over the past 12 hours. I needed to move fast.

I quickly asked Xin, “Can I bring your phone with me? I have to get my password out of the car.”

“Sure. Make us all rich, buddy,” he quickly replied.

I ran as fast as I could out to the rented ’99 Porsche, thinking that I could buy 20 of them now. I pulled the black notebook out of my bag, found the password and quickly typed my password into my stocks app. The stock was only down 2% more — all good.

I cashed out my original $7,000 — now up 1,212%. That’s $8,484,000 I cashed out! I kissed the black notebook and looked up to the starry sky in the desert with thanks. Tonight, all my lucky stars aligned. Nothing can prepare you for a moment where you’re entire life changes in an instant — nothing!

Adriana and I decided to drive back to the ski resort and book an extra night, this time in a suite with a jacuzzi. I called off work the next day, and so did Adriana. We celebrated with a nice bottle of champagne and a continuation of our 90’s nostalgia. Tonight, we really are going to party like it’s 1999 — no interruptions and simple celebration!

The End.