The assignment for Mrs. Stanfill’s eighth-grade social-studies class was to pick a year in U.S. history and live for a week as if it were that year, without any of the conveniences available in today’s modern society. I chose 1992, and for extra credit I persuaded my family to participate in the experiment along with me.

That’s the beginning of a humor piece, 1992 House, that appears in this week’s New Yorker. Though it’s a parody, for some reason it resonated with me. The year 1992 feels like yesterday; it’s shocking to realize how many things I take for granted today didn’t exist a mere 13 years ago.