I was born in '89 the year the wall fell. Whenever I think of the 90's, the year 1997 springs to mind. The year my LEGO collection really started to grow. When I look at that years catalogue I ended up getting so many of the sets.
I just looked it up on the internet and that catalogue is still ingrained into my mind. And at the end of the year I was the winner of the LEGO lottery or whatever it was and won the octan race truck and got another set for free (I would go on to win 2nd place in 1998 (I won the big Egyptian Indiana Jones temple), and first place again in 1999 (Rockraiders the video game, which was sorta crap but eh it was free).
While I got a shit ton of LEGO our new neighbours moved in and he had tons of cool shit as well, Action Man, MegaDrive, the works.
Around that time my older brother moved into PC gaming so I got his NES which I played more on than he did at that point anyway but also got to experience those amazing PC games for the first time.
Man, what an incredible year, followed by one of the most difficult, which is why I remember it so well and 1996 for example is mostly just a blur.
1998 started out fine as well. I got my own pet (guinea pig) in the spring as I just loved animals but our cat was bigger buddies with my brother.
Every morning he would wake up at 8 AM to make one hell of a noise and kick all the wood fibers out of his cage. We ended up trying all the brands and the result was always the same.
We gave up and bought a small vacuum cleaner and put it next to his cage, so we could immediatly clean up the mess he made.
A few months later disaster struck. Around the summer I was diagnosed with asthma and a pretty bad case of it too. As a kid I was terrified because I couldn't breathe at all. They gave me oxygen at the hospital but it was clear it was a severe case.
The following months I had to take like 12 or 14 pills each and every day. And use inhalers to stop the attacks. For two weeks straight I had to throw up every night to the point that I was afraid to sleep worried that I might not wake up the next day.
But during the first week of that ordeal on 'a good day' when I didn't get car sick my dad took a quick detour to the toy shop 10 minutes before they closed and said I could take home a racing track.
Because healthcare was public back then a civil servant visited our home to inspect and find out what might possibly trigger the asthma. We had to remove the items with no 'sentimental value' such as carpets, fabrics etc. .
My dad spend quite some time to replace our flooring and I got new furniture in my room as well. Next I remember taking my pet to the animal shelter with my parents and I was absolutely devastated that the guinea pig had to go.
I didn't want to but they said I'd be sorry for the rest of my life if I didn't went along to say goodbye to "Pinchy". As soon as we got there the girl at the desk just fell in love with him as he was the cutest guinea pig in all of history.
We later learned that she took it home with her that day. I couldn't have wished for a better home for Pinchy but I cried all day. At age 9 I realized this disease would haunt me for the rest of my life.
